As schools challenge validity of Delhi’s new fee law, govt extends deadline for committee formation and fee hike proposal submission by 10 days

The Delhi government made the concession in the wake of a batch of fresh petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Delhi School Education (Transparency in Fixation and Regulation of Fees) Act, 2025. (File photo)

Acting on a bunch of petitions before the Delhi High Court, moved by schools in Delhi challenging the constitutional validity of the new school fee regulation law, the education department Thursday agreed to extend the deadlines for forming the school-level fee regulation committee (SLFRC) for the academic year 2025-26 and the submission of the proposal for fee hike by 10 days.

The Delhi government made the concession in the wake of a batch of fresh petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Delhi School Education (Transparency in Fixation and Regulation of Fees) Act, 2025, and its rules. The new Act came into effect on December 10.

A key provision of the law mandates a three-tier committee structure to audit fee hikes and comes after years of friction between parent associations and private schools over arbitrary charges. The petitions also challenged an order of the Directorate of Education (DoE) of December 24, which issued directions for the constitution and functioning of the SLFRC for the academic year 2025-26.

Among the directions were that SLFRC should be constituted by January 10 and that the school managements’ fee hike proposal should be submitted to SLFRC by January 25.

Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, appearing on behalf of DoE the Delhi government, on the urging of a division bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia, submitted that the deadline for constituting the SLFRC should be extended till January 20 and the last date for submission of the proposed fee hike by the school managements to SLFRC should be extended to February 5.

The bench issued notice to the DoE and the Delhi L-G, seeking their responses. However, it refused to stay the December 24 order of DOE. The matter will be heard next on March 12.

Among the petitions is one from the Action Committee of Unaided Recognised Private Schools, comprising more than 800 member schools. During the hearing, the association, represented by senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi and advocate Kamal Sharma, argued that the new legislation is a “result of populism”, and has been enacted with no application of mind, being “malafide, biased, arbitrary and malicious in nature”.

The association, in its petition, submitted that, as education is in the concurrent list, the Delhi government lacks the competence to enact a law for fee regulation, as there is already parliamentary legislation, the Delhi School Education Act, 1973, in place.