Three schools that had barred students from attending classes for non-payment of fees announced in a notice on Wednesday that “they are allowing all the students to attend” classes following a court order.
“As a mark of respect to the order dated 19.4.2022 passed by the Hon’ble High Court at Calcutta we are allowing all the students to attend the School without prejudice to our rights and contentions in law subject to further order to be passed by the Hon’ble Court,” read a notice pasted on the gates at GD Birla Centre for Education, Mahadevi Birla Shishu Vihar and Ashok Hall Girls’ Higher Secondary School, which are part of a same group.
A division bench of the high court had on Tuesday said schools could not disallow any student from attending classes or close their institutions citing law and order problems. The three schools had done so.
The order is applicable to all private unaided schools whose names had come up in connection with allegedly arbitrary fee hikes during the pandemic.
A lawyer not involved in the case said the notice would be effective on an interim basis.
“The schools mean to say they are allowing students on the basis of an interim order. If the final order is different, the parents should not tell them they will have to allow all students in because an earlier notice had said so,” said advocate Jayanta Narayan Chatterjee.
Parents whose children were allegedly barred from attending classes in the new session sent them to school on Wednesday.
The division bench had on Tuesday heard a petition that alleged that students were being discriminated against despite their parents having paid the fees in accordance with a court order.
Guardians of students of GD Birla Centre for Education, Mahadevi Birla Shishu Vihar, Ashok Hall Girls’ Higher Secondary School and Hind Motor Education Centre are among those who filed the petition.
Parents who filed the petition said the schools followed the court order on Wednesday.
A petitioner, whose child is a student at GD Birla, said: “The children were allowed to attend classes today. The school asked us to collect report cards. But in the report cards it has requested parents to clear their dues. This is discrimination and we will report this to the court-appointed special officers.”
Calls to officials of GD Birla, Mahadevi Birla Shishu Vihar and Ashok Hall Girls Higher Secondary School went unanswered. They did not respond to text messages either.
An official of Hind Motor Education Centre said they never prevented any student from attending classes. "One day some students had turned up for the new session despite not having collected their report cards. They were asked to be in a separate room till their roll numbers were assigned, which was misinterpreted by the parents,” said a school official.