‘A suicide note’: Delhi private school fee regulation bill under fire from parents groups, lawyers

The Delhi School Education (Regulation of Fee) Bill, 2025, tabled on the opening day of the monsoon session of the Delhi Legislative Assembly, is drawing mounting criticism from legal experts and parent groups, who allege that the legislation dilutes long-standing legal protections for parents and students, while empowering private schools to fix fees with minimal oversight.

The bill, which aims to regulate the fee structure of private unaided schools in Delhi, has come under fire for allegedly legitimising previously-unapproved fees, allowing collection of capital expenditure from parents, and creating token regulatory mechanisms that are controlled by the very schools they are meant to oversee.

One of the central objections raised by critics is the bill’s omission of the term "capitation fee”, a concept that has been integral to several Supreme Court rulings on the commercialisation of education. In the landmark Modern Dental College and Research Centre v. State of Madhya Pradesh case in 2016, the Constitution Bench had made it clear that even charging excessive fees beyond reasonable requirements constitutes commercialisation.

Critics argue that by narrowly confining the concept to profiteering, the new bill sidesteps this precedent and opens the door for exploitative fee hikes under the guise of institutional autonomy.

Delhi School Fee Regulation Bill: Capital expenditure

Legal experts also highlight that the Delhi School Education (Regulation of Fee) Bill, 2025 , explicitly permits schools to collect fees for capital expenditure, in contradiction with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Modern School v. Union of India (2004), where the court categorically held that capital costs — such as infrastructure expansion or building repairs — cannot be passed on to parents as part of the tuition fee.

However, under Section 8 of the new bill, such expenditures have been included in the fee determination formula.

Parents and activist groups, as well as the Aam Aadmi Party organised a protest in Delhi on Tuesday.

PTA structure a ‘farce’

The Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) mechanism outlined in the bill has also attracted skepticism. The legislation mandates that every school form a PTA within 15 days of notification, with parent members selected through a draw of lots conducted by the school itself. Parent representatives say this provision is open to manipulation, with schools allegedly hand-picking compliant parents who offer no resistance to fee hikes.

Aprajita Gautam, president Delhi Parents Association (DPA), dismissed the PTA clause as symbolic and lacking substance. “This is a suicide note for parents, but written by the Sarkar,” she said.

“The reality is that those who have tea with the principal and nod their heads are shown as parent representatives. Where are these meetings where real issues are being discussed? This entire PTA structure is a farce.”

10 heads under Delhi School Fee Regulation Bill 2025

The bill defines ten heads of fees under Section 2(6), while also allowing schools to add further categories.

This effectively reverses the discipline imposed by the Delhi High Court in Delhi Abhibhavak Mahasangh v. GNCTD and the Supreme Court in the Modern School case, where fee heads were limited to four in order to prevent unregulated fee structures, pointed out lawyers.

In another controversial move, the bill appears to treat Class 11 admissions as fresh admissions, contrary to the Supreme Court’s judgment in the Payal Gupta case, which upheld automatic promotion from Class 10 to Class 11 for schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education.

Delhi School Education Bill: Fee committees flawed

Parents and legal professionals also point to the bill’s approach to fee committees as fundamentally flawed. Under Section 4, each school will establish a fee committee that includes parent members, but critics argue the structure is under the effective control of the school management. There is no provision for mandatory audits of school accounts, leaving parents to either trust the management’s claims or challenge them with little institutional support.

Advocate Shikha Sharma Bagga, director of the Forum for Indian Parents and a Supreme Court lawyer, said the bill removes the core grievance redressal mechanism for parents. “The government is boasting about the Rajasthan model. But on what basis is it successful? If the right to complain is taken away, then of course there are no complaints — it doesn’t mean everything is fine,” she said.

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“Fifteen percent representation by parents is not practical. Instead of this flawed committee system, there should be government-appointed auditors. I’m a lawyer, not a financial expert. How are ordinary parents expected to review audited accounts?”

Section 5 of the bill has become a particular flashpoint. The clause allows schools to charge fees as per the previous year’s structure, even if their proposal for the current year is under review or rejected. Critics allege that this clause legitimizes unauthorized fee hikes made in previous years and creates a mechanism by which unapproved fees gain retroactive legal status.

In the case of Apeejay School in Saket, for example, the Delhi government had previously approved a monthly fee of Rs 6,000. However, in recent years the school increased the fee to Rs 10,000 without government sanction. Parents, supported by earlier Delhi High Court orders, continued paying the approved fee, and in 2000, the school was sealed for non-compliance. Under the new legislation, if the school’s committee approves the revised fee for 2025–26, it could legally begin charging Rs.12,000.

Even if the approval is denied, the school would still be allowed to charge the unapproved 2024–25 fee of Rs. 10,000, thereby removing judicial protections secured by parents through earlier litigation.

The heads of expenditure allowed in the bill also include controversial components such as the cost of litigation, fines imposed by the government, and unspecified “luxury” expenses. Legal precedent had disallowed such inclusions, but the bill provides no safeguards to prevent schools from passing these costs onto parents.

“This bill is nothing short of a formal surrender to private profiteering,” said Khagesh Jha, an advocate who has been fighting fee exploitation in Delhi schools for more than 15 years.

“It legalises exploitation by allowing schools to fix their own fees without any real audit, buyer approval or regulatory oversight. The school-level committee is a joke — there’s no functioning PTA in most Delhi schools, and management will control the process. There was a protest against this kind of fee structure back in 1998, and now they’ve reopened the same Pandora’s box. The 15% surplus clause shows the government knows profiteering will continue. This is not regulation — it’s a handover.” He also says that several sections of the bill are laughable.

The creation of District Fee Regulatory Committees under Section 7 and Revision Committees under Section 9 has also been met with skepticism. Parents are required to form an "aggrieved group" representing 15% of the school population to seek redress. Critics argue that this is unfeasible in the absence of formal organizing structures and awareness. Ashok Agarwal, President of All India Parents Association, called the 15 percent threshold “impractical” and said the entire process lacks transparency.

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“There’s no way for parents to organise or vote fairly. There is no awareness. The school always finds a way to divide opinion. This is not reform — it’s a possible political move,” he said.

Delhi private schools: Parents penalised

Another provision drawing criticism is Section 8, which allows schools to recover penalties levied against them from parents. Although Sections 12 through 14 provide for penalties for violations of the Act, they offer no clarity on who ultimately bears the financial burden. “Even if a school is penalized for wrongdoing, the law allows it to hike fees to recover that cost from parents,” said a parent activist. “It’s absurd.”

The bill also fails to mention Nazul land obligations or the Delhi Development Authority’s rules, even though many private schools in Delhi operate on government-leased land at subsidized rates. These allotment agreements often require prior approval from the Directorate of Education for fee hikes. The absence of any reference to these land conditions has raised concern that the bill may implicitly allow schools to bypass their legal obligations tied to public land.

While the bill claims to operate in addition to the Delhi School Education Act, 1973 and the Right to Education Act, 2009, legal experts note that some of its provisions conflict directly with Sections 17(3) and 18(4) of the DSE Act, as well as Rules 175 and 177. The Supreme Court had addressed these discrepancies in paragraphs 21 and 27 of Modern School v. Union of India, but those legal safeguards now stand diluted.

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Aprajita, whose group has been fighting fee hikes for over a decade, said the bill leaves fundamental questions unanswered. “Where are the accounts shown? In most schools, we don’t even know what happens with Annual Day expenses. The money trail is hidden. There is no fair process, and this bill does nothing to change that.”

The Delhi government has defended the bill as a much-needed update to the fee regulation framework, arguing that it introduces transparency and standardization. However, with growing unrest among parent groups and legal experts calling for the bill’s withdrawal, the legislation is shaping up to be one of the most hotly debated school education policies in recent memory.

As the bill awaits final passage in the Delhi Legislative Assembly, parent bodies across the capital are mobilising to demand amendments, transparency safeguards, and independent audits. For now, many fear the bill’s passage could mark the end of judicial protections that had taken decades to establish.