Calcutta High Court has proposed to form a two-member committee which will be headed by Professor Suranjan Das, Vice-Chancellor of Jadavpur University. The committee will be looking into the accounts of private schools following a petition seeking concession in the fees due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A division bench consisting of Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Mushumi Bhattacharya has rejected a plea filed by petitioner for relaxing a previous order issued on the payment of 80 percent of dues of school fees by July 31, 2020.
Parents ask for reduction of fees
The bench however extended the deadline for the payment until next week while a section of parents moved a plea at the High Court asking for a reduction of fee claiming that online classes are being conducted by the schools which have reduced the expenses.
The other members of the committee will be named by the State Advocate General from among the recently retired heads of West Bengal Higher Secondary Board or Secondary Board. The HC has also directed that the matter will be taken up today for constituting the committee and other related orders.
Schools to be analyzed from January to July
Approximately 112 private schools in Kolkata and other parts of the state have been named in the petition and the committee will be receiving accounts pertaining to the income and expenditure of the schools involved in the proceedings within a week. The court has also stated that the particulars to be set by the schools should include the figures for the months from January to July 2020.
The High Court bench has also stated that the numbers will give the committee an idea as to what the normal income and expenditure is if the schools and what the income and expenditure have been after the lockdown began in March 2020.
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The bench further stated that the object of this is to discover the variable costs involved and the extent of concession that the schools require to pass on to the students and the parents.
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