Verdict reserved in private schools fee case

LAHORE :The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday reserved its verdict in the case of private schools receiving excessive fee in violation of Supreme Court’s order.

The LHC judge Justice Sajid Mehmood Sethi reserved the verdict after all stakeholders concluded their arguments. The parents had challenged the decision of private schools receiving excessive fees, pleading that private educational institutions were violating the Supreme Court (SC) order by taking excessive fees. The petitioners' counsel Azhar Siddique argued that the parents and students were facing difficulties due to the exorbitant fees being taken by private schools. He requested the court to restrain private educational institutions from collecting exorbitant fees and immediately declare the decision illegal.

Last year in September, the Lahore High Court directed private schools to collect tuition fees as per the Supreme Court’s order. A bench of the LHC had summoned a report from the Punjab education secretary and the chief executive officer of the district education authority to submit their reports on fees being collected by private educational institutions on October 14.

The SC in its judgment last year had ruled that private educational institutions would charge the same fees as in January 2017. On December 13 last year, then Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar ordered all private educational institutions across Pakistan to cut down their fees while instructing Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to freeze the accounts of at least two schools.