In a great relief to parents in haryana and punjab, the high court in chandigarh has issued an order that no school in the states of haryana and punjab can increase the school fee without prior approval from Board.

“No School fee and any other extra charges shall be increased by any school situated within the territorial jurisdiction of this court and affiliated to the CBSE, Punjab School Education Board and the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education, without prior approval of the respective Board/ Council”, a division bench comprising Justice S K Mittal and Justice TPS Mann held today.

High court issued these restraining orders to all the schools in the state in response to one of the petitions jointly filed by 10 students from Malerkotla while two other petitioners were city-based NGOs Anti Corruption and Crime Investigation Cell and All India Crime Preventing Society, where a school has apparently collected an amount of Rs 1.08 crore in the academic year 2010 and Rs 1.87 crore in the academic year 2011 apart from forcing students to by books and school uniforms from the school.

The high court has also suggested that no school affiliated to CBSE can prescribe books other than NCERT and they cannot themselves publish any other text books.