Delhi School Fee Hike: How govt plans to check private schools with new bill and why it’s ‘complicated’

NEW DELHI: Delhi government is back with a new bill to regulate fee hike in private schools. This time, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is making an attempt to regulate the fees with the cabinet passing the Delhi School Education (Transparency in Fixation and Regulation of Fees) Bill, 2025 on Tuesday.

This is not the first time the state government has tried to control private school fee hike in Delhi. A decade ago, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government then in power had drafted the Delhi School (Verification of Accounts and Refund of Excess Fee) Bill, 2015. It had passed in the legislative assembly but was scuttled by the Lieutenant Governor (LG), an appointee of the central government which, even then, was led by the BJP.

The 2025 Bill, if passed in the assembly and approved by the LG, will make Delhi the 15th state or union territory to enact a law for regulating fee hikes in schools. Chief minister Rekha Gupta stated that the government will be convening a special session to pass the Bill.

However, activists working in the field of education in the city, term this bill “complicated” and “unworkable”.

An announcement of the features of the bill by Gupta and education minister Asish Sood highlights that there are various features borrowed from policies of other states.

The bill will have implications for the 1,677 private schools in the city.

Delhi School Fees Hike: Court cases

Private schools fees have always been a matter of great contention and the cause of much litigation in the capital.

Following the order of the Delhi High Court in 2011, Justice Anil Dev Singh committee had assessed the financial records of schools and around 544 schools were asked to refund the extra fees collected, which amounted to over Rs 750 crore.

In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that private schools built on government land – around 400 of them – could not increase fees without approval from the government. These are private schools that received land at low cost from government agencies for the purpose of education.

During the COVID pandemic as well, parents had raised complaints of fee hikes, following which the government had directed schools to charge only tuition fees. The schools had dragged the government to court over this as well. Not just in Delhi, but the pandemic period saw similar cases filed in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana.

However, in May 2024, Delhi High Court stayed an order of the Delhi education department which said the schools built on government land cannot increase fees without approval.

As the new 2025-26 academic session began, Delhi parents were faced with a massive school fees hike. Many took to the street to protest. Following the hue and cry, Delhi government said that 970 schools had been inspected and notices served to over 150 schools on complaints related to fee hike.

“We wanted to put an end to this stop gap arrangement, hence we decided to bring in the new bill in 65 days of coming to power,” said Delhi education minister, Ashish Sood.

2025 Vs 2015: How the two schools fees Bills differ

Apart from the names, the two bills differ on several aspects, one very important.

The 2015 Bill stipulated just one committee which would be headed by a retired judge, nominated by the government. The other members included a chartered accountant (CA), a retired civil engineer, not below the rank of executive engineer from the Public Works Department, an eminent person with expertise in the field of education and additional director (education) as member- secretary.

The 2025 bill introduces a three-tier committee system.

Given below is how the proposed fee regulatory committee will be structured and the three tiers involved:

• School-Level Fee Regulation Committee: Constituted annually in each private, unaided, recognised school with a representative of school management as chairperson, principal as secretary, three teachers, and five parents selected through a lottery. The parents group must have representation from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes and must include at least two women. The director, education, will nominate an observer. The committee will have a one year term and parents selected through draw cannot serve more than two consecutive terms.

• District Fee Appellate Committee: Constituted by the director of education at the district level with deputy director of education (district) as chairperson. Other members include the deputy director for the zone, a CA, two teacher representatives (from the school-level committee and nominated by the education director) and two parents (also from the school committee and nominated. The district committee will hear appeals from schools or parents against school-level committee decisions.

• Revision Committee: If the appellant is not satisfied even with the district committee's decision, the matter will go to the state-level committee. Constituted by the government and at the state level, it’ll have the director as the chairperson. Other members being eminent personalities in the field of education, CA, controller or deputy controller of accounts, representative of the private school and parents. The additional director, education, will be the ex-officio member secretary.

The revision committee will issue final rulings that will be binding for three academic years.

Lawyer-activist Ashok Agarwal, founder of Social Jurist, said, “There may be justification for parents and school representatives at the school level committee but there is no requirement of such representation in the other level committees. Who will select or elect parents and school representatives in committees other than school level committees? The bill is an endless mess.”

School Fees Act Delhi: Fines and recognition

Earlier bills required schools to submit financial records based on which the proposed fee hike for the next academic year would be cleared or denied. The new bill requires the school committee to be constituted by July 15 and the proposals for hike to be submitted by July 31.

In the earlier bill, the penalty for undue school fee hike could be imprisonment up to three years, a fine of at least Rs 50,000 extendable to Rs 5 lakh, or both.

In the new one for schools raising fees without permission, the penalty includes fines ranging from Rs 1 to Rs 10 lakh and revocation of recognition in extreme situation.

"In such a short time, we have prepared a comprehensive bill, passed it through the Cabinet, and presented a new administrative approach and example of good governance to the people of Delhi. The previous law did not specify how, when, or by whom fee hikes could be made — schools were only required to notify fee increases,” said the Delhi CM, Rekha Gupta, while announcing the cabinet decision.

States with fee regulation laws

Fourteen states and UTs in the country have implemented fee regulation acts. Recently, West Bengal and Telangana have also announced they will constitute fee regulation committees.

The table below shows when the states implemented their policies.

Fee Regulation Act: States and years

In the case of Maharashtra, the bill is called The Maharashtra Educational Institutions (Regulation of Fee) Act, 2011, but it was passed in 2014 and amended in 2018.

What school fees act Delhi borrows

The Delhi bill has several provisions borrowed from laws in other states.

From the Tamil Nadu law, the Delhi Bill picks out the different parameters on which the schools can seek increase, such as infrastructure availability and the student-teacher ratio. Even the Punjab Act has such provisions.

The Rajasthan and the Maharashtra fee regulation laws also have three-level committees to implement the fee increase. Similarly, the selection of members through draw of lots is an important provision of Rajasthan’s school fees Act.

The Gujarat Act is the one which has fee structures prescribed for primary, secondary and higher secondary levels. Each school needs to submit their proposal with the fee regulatory committee before imposing any hike, like in the Delhi 2015 Bill.

The fines being imposed in Delhi’s 2025 Bill are similar to those in Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka.

The Madhya Pradesh Act says that the fee hike cannot be more than 10% – a longstanding practice in Delhi – and the hike would be examined by the district committee.