LHC reserves verdict in private school fees case

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday reserved its verdict in the case of private schools receiving excessive fees, ARY News reported.

The LHC judge Justice Sajid Mehmood Sethi reserved the verdict after hearing arguments from lawyers. The home secretary department submitted the new report of private educational institutions fees in the court.

The parents had challenged the decision of private schools receiving excessive fees in LHC. The petitioner in its plea had maintained that private educational institutions are violating the Supreme Court (SC) orders by taking excessive fees.

The parents and students were facing difficulties due to the exorbitant fees being taken by private schools, reads the plea. The petitioner pleaded the LHC to restrain private educational institutions from collecting exorbitant fees and immediately declare the decision as 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 institutes on Oct 14.

The SC in its judgement last year had ruled that private educational institutions would charge the same fees as in January 2017.

Read More: Private schools told to collect fees as per SC order

On Dec 13 last year, the then Chief Justice 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.