HC serves notice on private school

The Bombay high court on Wednesday issued notice to the management of BD Somani International School, Cuffe Parade, for allegedly not refunding fees to two students, who had chosen to withdraw admission from school’s class XI-International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP).

The division bench of chief justice Swatanter Kumar and justice AM Khanvilkar has directed the school to file its reply in two weeks’ time. The court will now decide if the state government can interfere in the decision-making power of a private school or not.
The parents claim that they were asked to pay Rs3,10 lakh in December, 2007 for the term beginning July 2008. But after they cancelled the admission, they got back only Rs25,000, the academic fees for 2008-09. The students withdrew admissions in May 2008.

“We have incurred losses as the school has not refunded Rs3.1 lakh,” says the petition. It also says that the school has a capacity of 60 seats for which it received more than 500 applications.

“The government presently does not have any effective tool to curb and curtail such act of the educational institutes to retain the fees despite cancellation of admission,” the petition adds. Arguing for the school management, advocate Sujay Kantawala told the court that the said petition is not maintainable as the school is governed by private management.
The court will hear the case now on December 12.