The Telangana government moved the Hyderabad High Court on Thursday and filed a petition to get a stay order on the issue of hiking school fees in the state.
The state's Education Department had earlier ordered status quo on the fee hike in January this year, following which some school challenged the decision in court.
As the HC allowed private schools to raise fees, the government has petitioned the court to stay its latest order.
The Hyderabad School Parents Associations (HSPA) said that it was a welcome move but questioned the delay, as several school would begin a fresh academic year by the time the court case was resolved, and the former would collect increased fees.
They also said that many parents had already paid the fees for the coming academic year.
“It is good that they have filed a counter affidavit but there is a lot of meat that they could have added, for instance, proofs of profiteering. In addition, they should have also asked for an urgent hearing of the case which will be listed for April 23,” Ashish Naredi, a member of HSPA, told TNIE.
Joint secretary of HSPA K. Venkat Sainath told DC, “It is good to note that the government has filed a vacate stay petition. However, we are still forced to conclude that this is nothing but an eyewash.”
In January, the Telangana government directed the managements of all private schools in the state to maintain status-quo and not hike their fees for the academic year 2018-19.
The move brought much needed relief to parents, who have been demanding regulation of the fees in Hyderabad and Telangana.
The state took the decision after a report submitted by the Tirupati Rao Committee, and said that the order was applicable to schools following CBSE and ICSE as well.
"However, we would also like to exercise a word of caution as this is a temporary stay. We can hope and pray that the government would come out with an equally stringent order when it releases its final order on the same. The final order, in fact, would be the most crucial as it would deal with every year's hike. If the final order is weak or lands up again in courts, we would be back to square one," the HSPA had warned at the time.