The Delhi High Court had in October upheld its interim order of last year allowing a 40 per cent hike in the tuition fee of private schools in the Capital. The apex court, however, restrained parents from taking to the streets in protest till the matter was pending before it.

A division bench comprising justices Sujata V Manohar and R C Lahoti also refused to stay the functioning of the Justice Santosh Duggal Committee, which was formed by the High Court to go into the various disputes regarding the fee hike between April 1997 and the end of the 1998-99 academic session.

The bench was hearing a bunch of appeals filed by Modern School, New Era Public School and the Action Committee of Unaided Private Schools (ACUPS) against the High Court judgement. The apex court had earlier refused to grant a stay on the High Court order on November 30 when the appeals first came up for hearing. Appearing for ACUPS, senior counsel Arun Jaitley pointed out that the Delhi Abhibhawak Mahasangh, the parents' body on whose public interest petition the High Court had passed the order, was holding demonstrations to pressurise the schools and the act amounted to contempt of court.

Expressing serious concern over this, the bench warned parents not to take the fight to the streets when the matter was being heard by the court.While the High Court had laid down directions and guidelines on the basis of which the Duggal Committee would act, the Delhi government had on September 10, 1996, listed several restrictions on the schools with regard to charging tuition fee and other charges.

Counsel for the Delhi Abhibhawak Mahasangh Ashok Aggarwal submitted that the body held a demonstration in front of the office of the director of education of the Delhi government in order to impress upon him the need to implement the High Court order at the earliest.

``In case this court does not desire us to continue with the demonstrations I undertake to advise my clients not to hold such demonstrations and issue press statements till the matter was pending disposal,'' Aggarwal assured the court.

Appearing for Modern School, senior counsel F S Nariman urged the court to prevent the Justice Santosh Duggal Committee from starting its work and permit the schools to increase their fee.

He said in case the committee was permitted to carry out its work, it should look into the cases without referring to the guidelines and directions of the High Court like the non-inclusion of capital expenditure as part of the fee. The pleading was subsequently rejected by the court.

The judges said: ``Let the Santosh Duggal Committee look into the accounts of each school to find out the justifiability of increase in fee. There appears to be a justification in the direction that capital expenditure cannot be a component of the fee structure.''

When the schools objected to the state government's intervention in formulating the fee structure, the bench observed: ``Many schools were indulging in profiteering and exploitation and somebody must look into the affairs.''

The bench directed the schools to jointly submit proposals seeking modifications of the High Court order and give a copy to the respondents who shall be at liberty to file affidavits in reply to the proposals.

Pointing out that the High Court had permitted the Mahasangh to be impleaded as a party in the ACUPS plea after it had not included the parents body in the memo of parties, Aggarwal contended that the same situation had been repeated here as the Mahasangh had again been dropped from the array of parties.