VIDYAVARDAKA SANGHA Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE writ petitions raise a common question as to the power of the State Government to fix or regulate the collection of tuition and other fees from the pupil studying in respective schools. The Constitution of India has given unto ourselves Article 45 declaring that the State shall endeavour that education up to the age of 14 years shall be free. Apparently, in order to make this Constitutional guarantee more meaningful, the Government of Karnataka after enacting the Education Act, 1984, had constituted a Committee to recommended further steps to achieve the object. It is seen from W. P. No. 18061/2000 and connected cases the extracts from the report of that Committee headed by Hon'ble Justice Chinnappa Reddy has been copiously referred to. In order to appreciate the gravity of the situation, a reference to the part of the report herein will be useful. The following part of the report has been extracted in the W. P. :

(2.) IN the guise of applying these rules, each Institution was levying fees as it suits them. It may be noticed that rule 10 (3) (b) (ii) merely stated that tuition fees that may be collected from the students studying in the Institutions shall be commensurate with expenditure incurred towards salary of staff and quality of education provided by the Institution. In fact, the implementation of the rule is in effect a Chancellors foot and depending on one's discretion (mostly I am told it verged to arbitrariness) the fees was being levied. It came to a state that, in the guise of "quality of education provided by the Institution," each Institution started levying its own fees which were fairy tale fixation. As for instance they provided a hall somewhere in the premises with a few musical instruments and claimed that they provided a special type of education in the field of music. Likewise, certain Institutions provided one or two computers in the school (which were mainly being used for the office purpose) and claimed that the existence thereof enhanced the quality of education. Again, certain other Institutions claimed higher distinction, in that, they choose the locality of the school having larger areas in the neighbourhood set apart by the Local Authorities as public utility lands and claimed that they can be used by thier students to play. This also according to them enhanced the "quality of education. " Thus the expression "quality of education" had received varied meaning assigned to by imaginative manager, the kinds of meaning given to the expression by various Institutions according to their imagination. The Institutions thus made claims that they were providing better quality of education to students admitted in their Institution. (These instances are culled out on the basis of local verification made by the Commissioners appointed in this behalf in this case, by this Court ). Perhaps, because of these unguided and unbridled interpretation of Rule 10 of Curricula Rules referred to supra, the Government framed fresh set of Rules called Karnataka Educational Institutions (Regulation of Certain Fees and Donations) Rules, 1999, (hereinafter referred to as the 'rules' ). These Rules were published in Gazette on 14-3-2000 and it came into force with the subsequent academic year. The Rule has been challenged by the petitioners herein who are managing private educational institutions. They are in particular challenging the validity of Rule 4, alleging that it infringes their right to levy commensurate fees. The said Rule reads as under:

(3.) ALL the cases were admitted and were posted for hearing. At this stage, a contention was urged on behalf of the State that many of the Institutions imparting education are not providing the statutory infrastructure and facilities contemplated under the Statute to be provided and that most of them are in the nature of commercial adventure. This stand was taken by the Government when the matter was being heard. Thereupon the petitioners filed a rejoinder disputing the statement asserting that the Institutions were complying with all the requirement of Rules and are providing amenities, infrastructure and facilities to be provided to the students studying in the school. Thereupon this Court appointed two Advocates, Mr. D. M. Joshi and Ms. Mamatha Biju, as Commissioners to visit petitioner-schools and submit a detailed report. It is noteworthy to state that these young Advocates did commendable work, visited all the petitioner-schools and submitted an exhaustive report which makes an interesting reading.