About a hundred metres off the roundabout at the mouth of Model Town Park, you see a ‘yellow’ wall. It is the boundary wall of The New School, a trust school established on plots 3 and 4 in Block B.

The plots measure six kanals each, and they house academic blocks for boys’ and girls’ sections. Earlier, the school had co-education.

The New School was established in 1935 by Ms LM Statford, an eminent educationist and once Director Education Lahore, for imparting education to the children of the locality. In 1964, the School Management Body was re-constituted and registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.

The Memorandum of Articles mentions that the school was set up for the purpose of education and not for profit, and that no member of the Board of Management shall gain any monetary benefit. It has also been mentioned that the amount saved after meeting the expenditures shall be invested in the development of the school. This status has been acknowledged at the state level. The proof of which is that the school’s income is tax-exempt as per the clause of the Income Tax Ordinance 1979.

The school is running successfully even today, imparting quality education to students at what its management terms "highly affordable rates." However, the management has been facing certain issues that led it to go to the superior courts from time to time. For one thing, it approached the Lahore High Court (LHC) against an intimation it got from the Board of Revenue (BoR) regarding payment of the existing market price of the property and 50 per cent surcharge over and above it if it wanted to get entitlement of the property. The surcharge, according to the BoR, is due because the property is being used for commercial purposes.

Prof Earnest Noel Dulvy, the current Chairman of the Board of Management of the school and also its principal, tells TNS that there is a history of attempts at usurping the property.

"It was in mid 1961 that The New School received a notice from one Muhammad Hussain, a resident of Nicholson Road, Lahore, who claimed to be the owner of the property no.4-B Model Town. The notice said that the property had been transferred to him by way of an order issued by the settlement authorities the same year. The said allotment was challenged in the court and after decades of litigation, first in the high court and later in the Supreme Court, the decision was given in favour of the school."

Prof Dulvy says that since Stratford had purchased the property before Partition, their case was strong. "But the lacuna was that the BoR had not provided Ms Statford the final title transfer documents despite her applying for these in 1959."

Prof Dulvy fears that although the court has upheld their claim to be the rightful possessors of the property, the BoR instructions for the payment of the existing market price and surcharge to get the requested documents may affect their interest. "The existing rates are exorbitant and the school is not in a position to pay even a part of it."

Qadir Bukhsh, counsel for the school management, says the latter filed the claim in the year 1959 and the same was accepted by the apex court in 1991. Therefore, he says, "the BoR cannot claim the price of the property according to the existing market rate."

He further says the department took more than 18 years to implement the order passed by the Supreme Court and now it is trying to benefit from the delay by demanding present-day market value of the property.

"The very basis that the property is being used commercially is also legally and factually incorrect."

Busksh says that even after 80 years of its establishment the school has not been able to open a single branch in Lahore or any other city of Pakistan whereas schools being run on commercial grounds are selling franchises. "Our plea is that the transfer should be made at the rates prevalent in 1959 when the request was originally made."

Samina Ahmed, a school alumnus and also a former teacher, is of the view that The New School is "the only school in Model Town Society for decades; its students have made a big name for themselves.

"The school doesn’t ask for donations, and meets its expenses from the fees that even today is hardly around Rs3,000 per child per month."

In response to a query, she says that the fee is "nominal, considering the medium of instruction [at the school] is English. Both the sections -- for boys and girls -- prepare the students for matriculation exams in Science or Humanities. The average class size is 30-35; therefore, each student gets individual attention."

According to Ahmed, it is ensured that the students are provided indoor and outdoor sports facilities as they play a major role in character building and personality development of students. For this, an area of this combined 12-kanal has been spared for students to play sports like basket ball, volley ball, cricket, tennis, etc. "Had it been a profit-seeking organisation, every inch of it would have been converted into covered area," she says.

Iftikhar Ahmad Mian, counsel of Model Town Society, says that a few years ago electricity supply to the school was disconnected. "Later, this issue was resolved as the school was able to establish that it is being run as a trust and does not consume electricity for commercial purposes."

On the current dispute over prices, he says, the society is contesting the case in the Supreme Court. "The power to determine prices was transferred to the society soon after Partition and it is up to them to determine these."

There are unconfirmed reports that some investors are on a standby to pool money and buy this property if it is auctioned. This situation may arise if the BoR decision to charge market price prevails and the school is unable to pay this amount.

However, the school management is hopeful that their stance will get sanction from the court and they will be able to serve the poor with a renewed vigour at this old New School.