MAYUR PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOL, Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioners, 19 in number, are the private unaided educational institutions imparting school education of different standards and affiliated with either Central Board of Secondary Education or Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education. The affairs of these schools are administered/managed by the societies registered under Rajasthan Societies Registration Act, 1958. By these writ petitions, on their behalf challenge is laid to validity of Rajasthan Schools (Regulation of Fee) Act, 2016 (for short, 'Act') with emphasis and focus on Sections 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15 and 16 of the Act and Rules 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 11 of the Rajasthan Schools (Regulation of Fee) Rules, 2017 (for short, 'Rules').

(2.) In order to assail vires of the impugned provisions of the Act and the Rules, the petitioners have boosted the standard of education imparted by them besides infrastructural facilities and other comforts offered to the students. Petitioners, in general, have highlighted efficient teachers employed in their institutions and some of the special features including well equipped library, playgrounds, skill development programmes etc., which according to them is not available in Govt. Schools. Buttressing their afflictions against the impugned provisions of the Act and the Rules, all the petitioners in unison have categorized them violative of Act 19(1)(g) of the Constitution. As per petitioners, impugned provisions have infringed their sacrosanct fundamental right to practise any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business.

(3.) For castigating the impugned provisions, petitioners have set out a case that the restrictions/measures and its enforcement methodology envisaged therein are arbitrary and unreasonable affecting their autonomy to the hilt. Substantially, in the pleadings and grounds set out for espousing their cause, petitioners have questioned validity of impugned provisions as not being satisfying the restrictive requirements envisaged under Article 19(6) of the Constitution. An attempt is also made by the petitioners to find fault with the impugned provisions on the anvil of Article 13(2) of the Constitution as being in clear negation of Part III of the Constitution. Composition of School Level Fee Committee, power of inspection bestowed on the officials of the Education Department, proposed coercive actions and penal provisions in the impugned provisions are also challenged by the petitioners as arbitrary and abhorrent. The petitioners have perceived impugned provisions an attempt by the State to control their institutions in the guise of so called profiteering and commercialization of education without any semblance of proof in this regard.