The Kerala High Court on Thursday asked District Education Officers (DEO) to scrutinise the income and expenditure of the CBSE-affiliated schools under their jurisdiction to find out whether the fee fixed by them included surplus or profits and file a report before the court.
Justice Devan Ramachandran passed the directive when a batch of petitions relating to complaints of excess fees demanded by certain CBSE schools came up for hearing.
The court had last time asked the government whether a special authority could be asked to scrutinise the income and expenditure of the CBSE-affiliated schools to find out whether they were charging a fee in excess of the actual expenditure and had made provisions for surplus or profits.
The government submitted that the DEOs could be tasked with the scrutiny of the income and expenditure of the CBSE-affiliated schools.
The CBSE submitted that it was for the State government to regulate the fee of CBSE- affiliated schools, taking into consideration the prevailing situation. The CBSE school could only charge a fee to the extent of meeting the expenses for running the school and the fee should be fixed without making profit, the CBSE counsel submitted.
The court adjourned the case to December 21 for further hearing.
