HC: How can TN expect private schools to pay staff if barred from collecting fees?

HC: How can TN expect private schools to pay staff if barred from collecting fees?

Sureshkumar.K@timesgroup.com

Chennai:24.06.2020

How can the Tamil Nadu government expect private schools and colleges to pay salaries to their staff if the institutes are prohibited from collecting even minimum fees, the Madras high court asked on Tuesday.

“It is the policy decision of the government that all private educational institutions must pay salaries to their staff, both teaching and nonteaching. But if unaided institutions are prohibited from collecting even minimum fees, how will they pay salary, that too when almost all such institutions are conducting online classes,” Justice R Mahadevan asked.

“When teachers are pressured to conduct online classes, shouldn’t they be paid,” the judge asked, while admitting the plea moved by the Federation of Association of Private Schools in Tamil Nadu and All India Private Educational Institutions Association and Consortium of Self Financing Professions Arts and Science Colleges in Tamil Nadu.

The court then directed the state to respond to the pleas by June 30.

Earlier, representing the petitioners, senior counsel K M Vijayan submitted that on April 20, the state issued a government order restraining all private schools and colleges in TN from demanding fee, payable by students as fixed by the fee fixation committee, citing the Covid-19 outbreak.

At the same time, the state had also instructed all such schools to pay salaries to all their staff without any default, Vijayan said.

“Wherever there is a right, there is an obligation. Similarly, wherever there is an obligation, there is a right,” he said and asked how these institutions, whose only source of income is fees from students, can pay salaries when they are prohibited from collecting the same.

Vijayan further added that the Disaster Management Act, 2005, under which the GO has been issued was solely enacted for managing disaster and it had relevance towards the financial management of individuals or schools/colleges management.

Only in Tamil Nadu was such a prohibition imposed. All other states have permitted such institutions to collect fees, he said.

...If unaided institutions are prohibited from collecting even minimum fees, how will they pay salary, that too when almost all such institutions are conducting online classes?

Justice R Mahadevan |

MADRAS HIGH COURT