Appoint chairman of school fee committee in 4 weeks: HC

MADURAI: The Madurai bench of the Madras high court on Monday gave four weeks to fill up the post of the chairman at the Tamil Nadu Private Schools Fee Determination Committee, which is lying vacant for the last nine months. The government should also file a compliance report before the court on November 2, the court said.

B Karthee from Madurai had filed a public interest petition that sought to fill up the post of the chairman. The PIL came up for hearing before the division bench headed by the chief justice. The petitioner's side said that the committee is supposed to fix fees for schools in Tamil Nadu, which has about 12,000 private nursery, primary, matriculation and Anglo Indian schools.

"After the committee's former chairman justice SR Singaravelu demitted the office in last December, the state government had not taken steps to fill up the post. Due to the absence of the chairman, many private schools are collecting excess fees from students for the academic year 2016-17. Hence, it is necessary to fill up the post immediately," the petitioner said. Though a representation was also sent to the

school

education secretary and inspector of the matriculation schools on July 5 requesting to fill up the post, no action was taken."

The additional advocate general (AAG) told the court that the government was taking all the steps to fill up the post. But, due to the present circumstances, the task is getting delayed, the

AAG

said. When the bench asked, "What is the present circumstances?", the government side remained silent.

Following it, the bench disposed the PIL by giving government four weeks to fill up the post of chairman.