Supreme Court reprieve for minority schools

source:-telegraphindia

Six minority schools in Calcutta can approach Calcutta High Court for a “recall/modification” of the court’s order asking a two-member committee to go through their income and expenditure details, the Supreme Court said on Thursday.

Until an order is passed on the application of the petitioners, the high court order will be kept in abeyance, the Supreme Court said.

The high court formed the two-member committee after parents of students of 121 private schools sought a fee waiver. They had said they found it difficult to clear the dues because of financial crisis during the pandemic.

Six Christian missionary schools run by the Calcutta diocese of the Church of North India (CNI) had moved a special leave petition before the Supreme Court challenging the high court order.

The church decided to move the petition because minority schools enjoy financial autonomy to run their schools, a CNI official said. This freedom to minority schools is guaranteed by Article 30 of the Constitution.

“The direction to submit the audited books of accounts with income/expenditure statements of the schools causes grave hardship and prejudice to the minority rights of the petitioners who are private unaided minority schools managed and controlled exclusively by the Diocese of Calcutta, Church of North India,” the petition in the apex court read.

A special bench of Justice Ahoke Bhusan, Justice R. Subhash Reddy and Justice M.R. Shah of the Supreme Court on Saturday allowed the special leave petition and gave the six schools the liberty to make a fresh application before Calcutta High Court.

The apex court was “of the view that looking into the issues, which are involved in the writ petition, the high court may decide all issues at an early date”.

The six schools that moved the special leave petition are the two La Martiniere schools, St James’, Pratt Memorial, St John’s Diocesan Girls’ Higher Secondary School and St Thomas’ Church School Howrah.

Some of these schools had offered 25 per cent relief on computer fees, sports and games fees and library fees from April to September. The La Martiniere schools do not charge separate fees for computer, library or sports but they form part of the tuition fees charged every quarter.

Parents whose children are in the La Martiniere schools could not say if they had received any waiver at all.

On July 18, a division bench of the high court, headed by Justice Sanjib Banerjee, had set up the two-member committee to examine the income and expenditure details of the 121 private schools while hearing a public interest litigation.

The bench had asked the committee to submit a report to the court after going through the details.

The two members of the committee are Suranjan Das, the vice-chancellor of Jadavpur University, and Gopa Dutta, the former vice-chancellor of Gourbanga University.

The court had asked the committee to examine the expense and income details of the schools to find out if the institutions had faced any financial difficulty as many guardians were reluctant to pay the fees during the lockdown.

The committee can seek the help of chartered accountants for the accounting job, the court had said.