The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to immediately interfere with Calcutta High Court’s directions to private schools in Bengal to waive 20 per cent of their tuition fees and completely waive the fees charged for services the students did not avail themselves of because of the pandemic.

But the apex court stayed portions of the judgment that asked schools to consider individual applications from parents for further waiver and allowed parents to approach a committee formed by the high court if they did not get redress from the schools.

A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, R. Subhash Reddy and M.R. Shah issued notices to the original petitioner, Vineet Ruia, and the state for their reply on a batch of special petitions filed by organisations challenging the impugned October 13 judgment of the high court.

Although various counsel appearing for the petitioners urged the court to stay the directions for waiver of fees, the bench orally declined to pass any such order but said it was issuing notice to the respondents and staying only the directions 8 to 16 in paragraph 61 of the high court order.

“…Permission to file special leave petitions is granted. Issue notice. In the meantime, directions 8 to 16 contained in para 61 of the impugned judgment be not implemented,” the bench said in a written order. The next date of hearing has not been fixed.

Directions 8 to 16 allowed parents to write to schools seeking further relief in terms of waiver or exemption or delayed or instalment payments. It also allowed them to approach a three-member committee if the school failed to address their concern.

The apex court passed the directions while dealing with the special leave petitions filed by Association of Schools for The Indian School Certificate West Bengal Chapter and several other schools assailing the October 13 judgment on the ground that it was contrary to several Supreme Court rulings that said private unaided schools were free to manage their affairs without any interference from the State.