J&K High Court clubs all petitions related to fee fixation committee

Case listed for hearing on 10 March 2022

Jammu: Jammu and Kashmir High Court has clubbed all the writ petitions challenging the orders issued by the Fee Fixation and Regulation Committee. While hearing the case the High Court said that until further orders, the effect and operation of the impugned order of the Fee Fixation and Regulation Committee shall remain in abeyance.

While hearing a case, Chief Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice Sindhu Sharma observed, “Since some of the writ petitions have been entertained and interim orders have been passed, we direct all these writ petitions to be clubbed together with WP (C) No. 1021/2021 and WP (C) No. 1063 of 2021. All the writ petitions are directed to be listed on 10.03.2022.”

“Until further orders of this Court the effect and operation of the impugned order of the Fee Fixation and Regulation Committee shall remain in abeyance,” the court observed.

The private schools had filed number of petitions in Srinagar and Jammu urging the court to quash various orders of Fee Fixation Committee for being against the las and being violative of fundamental rights of the petitioners.
The private schools have been demanding quashing a) proviso to Section 20-E(I) of the J&K School Education Act, 2002, as amended to the extent it prohibits charging of admission fee, being violative of fundamental rights of the petitioner and ultra vires the constitution of India, b) Government Order No. 228-Edu of 2020, dated 18/09/2020, whereby, it has been ordered that no admission fee is to be charged by any private school and the fee already paid is to be refunded with effect from 31/10/2019, the same being without jurisdiction and contrary to Section 13 of Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act., 2009 (Which deals with Capitation Fee alone and not the admission fee), c) order no. 03-FFC of 2020, dated 13/11/2020, whereby, the Petitioners have been prohibited by the Fee Fixation Committee to charge the admission fee, d) order No. 44 FFRC of 2021 dated 18-02-2021 for being arbitrary, illegal and non-est in the eyes of law and violative of Article 14 and 19((1)(g) of the Constitution of India, e) order No. 45 FFRC of 2021 dated 18-02-2021 for being arbitrary, illegal, without jurisdiction, non-est in the eyes of law and violative of Article 14 and 19(1)(g) of the Constitution of India, f) order No. 54 FFRC (FF) of 2021 dated 07-04-2021 and order no. 59 FFRC (FF) of 2021, whereby fee structure proposed by the petitioner has been rejected, being arbitrary, illegal, and violative of Article 14 and 19(1)g) of the Constitution of India.