PESHAWAR: The Peshawar District Bar Association (PDBA) and several people on Wednesday moved the Peshawar High Court seeking the issuance of orders for the implementation of its judgment delivered four months ago for regulating the affairs of the private educational institutions.

A ‘joint implementation petition’ was filed by PDBA, lawyers Farman Ali, Zulfiqar Khalil and others requesting the court to issue directives to the provincial government, relevant regulatory authority and private educational institutions to implement the order of the court issued on Nov 8.

The petitioners pointed out that the court had directed that the respondents including the secretaries of higher and elementary education should do the needful within three months positively and in case no report is submitted, the additional registrar (Judicial), PHC, shall file a contempt of court for the implementation of the said order.

The petition is filed through advocates Abbas Khan Sangeen and Shakeel Aman.

The petitioners said the high court had ruled: “It is high time to check the overall activities of the private schools/institutions and for that matter we are of the view to put a complete ban on any fresh/new opening of the school right from playgroup/primary level to the intermediate level, unless and until the regulatory authority so constituted formulate the policy, law and regulations to the extent. The building in which the school is to be operational must have area of playgroup, assembly premises/hall, furniture, library, washrooms, water facilities, laboratory; tuition fee, annual fee, canteen, etc. its management and charges.”

The bench consisting of Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Ijaz Anwar Khan had directed the regulatory authority to formulate a uniform policy regarding fee structure including annual and tuition fee and charging extra than that shall be banned completely.

The court had declared illegal the charging of transport fee from students during summer vacations. Similarly, the bench had also declared that the private schools should charge a maximum of 50 percent of the tuition fee during vacations of more than 30 days.

“The annual increase as made is totally unjustified because there is no raw material used. The annual increase under no circumstances be more than three per cent per annum,” the bench had ruled.

On Nov 8, the bench had accepted three petitions against private educational institutions, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and regulatory authority on multiple grounds.

In its detailed judgment, the bench issued several directions and guidelines to the government and regulatory authority for formulating a policy to regulate the existing and new schools.

The petitioners said the private educational institutions in the province were not complying with the orders of the court.

They claim that being the month of fresh admissions in schools and promotions in annual examinations, the administrations of private schools had been teasing people by asking for exorbitant fee as well as promotion fee, which was declared illegal by the court.

The court had also ordered the institutions not to charge more than half of the tuition fee from the second and third children of the same parents.

It had added that there would be compulsory physical training classes.

The court had ruled that unless the uniform policy of fee including annual and tuition fee, was formulated, there would be no fee increase.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2018