Madras HC gives four weeks’ time to TN govt to appoint school fee panel chief

MADURAI: The Madurai bench of the Madras high court on Monday gave four weeks’ time to the state government to appoint the chairman of the Tamil Nadu Private Schools Fee Determination Committee. The post has been lying vacant for the last nine months.
Madurai-based B Karthee filed a public interest litigation seeking the court’s direction to the government to appoint the chairman.
When the PIL came up for hearing before the division bench headed by Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul for hearing, the petitioner’s side said the committee was supposed to fix fees for schools in the state which has around 12,000 private nursery, primary, matriculation and Anglo Indian schools.
“After the committee’s former chairman justice S R Singaravelu demitted the office in December last, the state government has not taken steps to fill the vacancy. Due to the absence of chairman, many private schools were collecting excess fees from the students for the academic year 2016-17. Hence, it is necessary to fill the vacancy immediately,” the petitioner’s side said.
The additional advocate general (AAG) told the court that the government was taking all the steps to fill the vacancy. However, due to the present circumstances, the task was getting delayed, the AAG said.
To that, the bench asked, “What is the present circumstances?” But the government side remained silent.
Following this, the bench gave the government four weeks’ time to complete the task of appointing the chairman.