What began as isolated complaints about rising tuition costs has exploded into a full-blown political confrontation between the Aam Aadmi Party and the newly-installed BJP government led by Chief Minister Rekha Gupta.
The current standoff stems from an April 2024 Delhi High Court interim order that altered the power dynamics of education financing in the capital. The court removed long-standing requirements for unaided private schools on DDA land to seek the state government’s approval before increasing fees. This changed how tuition costs were regulated for over 335 private institutions across Delhi.
While a sanction was earlier required for these 335 schools, the remaining 1,342 unaided recognised private schools in Delhi had another control mechanism: aggrieved families could file a complaint before the education department which would then examine whether the fee hike was justified. Though this time, most complaints about fee hikes are linked to the 335 schools on DDA land, the Delhi Parents Association told Newslaundry.
BJP Education Minister Ashish Sood has now pledged comprehensive school audits while accusing the previous AAP administration of deliberately enabling the crisis. “The Supreme Court passed an order in the 2004 Modern School case that Delhi schools are bound to take permission from the Directorate of Education before increasing their fees... But they (AAP) got this order dismissed in 2024 in Delhi High Court,” Sood alleged, promising investigations into “under-the-table money” allegedly taken during the previous government’s tenure.
Meanwhile, AAP Delhi president Saurabh Bharadwaj has claimed collusion between the BJP leadership and Bharat Arora, president of a powerful private school association – called Action Committee Unaided Recognised Private Schools – that successfully challenged government oversight in court.
Arora refused to comment on the issue.
The human cost
Families, meanwhile, are in limbo.
Parents report staggering fee increases ranging from 18 percent to 46 percent in just 12 months, with no relief in sight. The situation has grown so desperate that protests have erupted outside major institutions like Indraprastha International School and DPS Dwarka.
The Srijan School in Model Town shocked parents with a 45 percent fee hike since April 2024 – implementing a staggering 30 percent increase even before the interim order removed government oversight, following with an additional 15 percent this year. Parents who dared question these increases faced backlash; when their association protested, the school responded with legal notices for alleged trademark infringement and defamation.
“We were taken aback when we saw such a huge hike last year,” said Gaurav Gupta, whose children attend The Srijan School in Model Town. Gupta claimed there was no such hike in the years prior to 2024, except for new admissions. “All we want is that students should not be impacted,” he added, expressing concern about how students are treated in case of non-payment of fees.
At DPS Dwarka, parents reported a 105 percent fee increase over just four years – far exceeding rates previously authorised by government review. “Children who are not able to pay have been harassed... their names stricken off... mentally tortured,” claimed parent Divya Mattey, describing measures against students whose families cannot meet the new financial demands.
Salwan Public School in Mayur Vihar Phase 3 also increased its fees since the 2024 order was passed. “Just after the order was passed, the school immediately increased the fees by 32 percent. This year again they increased by 19 percent. We have been complaining about this hike several times since last year. But nobody has done anything,” claimed a parent who wished to be anonymous.
At Birla Vidya Niketan in Pushp Vihar, the management initially demanded a 22 percent hike before marginally reducing it to 18 percent after parent protests, while Salwan Public School in Mayur Vihar imposed a 32 percent increase immediately after the high court order before adding another 19 percent this year.
“We have sent multiple communications to school administration over the recent hike. But we have not received any positive responses. Our concern is transparency as the school is yet to provide us the rationale behind such a huge fee hike,” claimed another parent who wished to remain anonymous.
All these schools are on DDA land.
Parents claimed that the education department had issued multiple directives prohibiting student harassment over these disputed amounts, but schools have ignored these orders.
Newslaundry reached out to all the schools named in this report. This report will be updated if they respond.
A crisis decades in the making
The current fee explosion represents the latest battle in a conflict that has simmered for nearly three decades. Delhi’s first major fee crisis erupted in 1997, when schools implemented increases ranging from 40 percent to 400 percent following teacher salary adjustments mandated by the Fifth Pay Commission.
The subsequent legal challenges established a pattern that continues today: parents file complaints, schools challenge government’s circulars, courts intervene with temporary measures, committees investigate wrongdoing, and schools find new strategies to increase revenue despite official restrictions.
Two judicial panels – the Duggal Committee in 1998 and the Anil Dev Singh Committee in 2012 – documented hundreds of millions in “unjustified” charges that schools are yet to refund to parents. The Singh Committee determined that 604 schools owed parents approximately Rs 750 crore in excessive collections.
Despite multiple opportunities to establish permanent regulatory frameworks, consecutive Delhi governments have relied primarily on administrative circulars rather than comprehensive legislation. A 2015 attempt at a fee regulation law had failed.
Those who were involved in the campaign to regulate fee hikes claimed the Delhi government’s act had lacked proper mechanism to address the issue and would instead have given “blanket powers” to private schools.
Ashok Aggarwal, an advocate in Delhi High Court, has been involved in the campaign to regulate fee hikes and had helped draft a bill to tackle the problem. However, the AAP government passed a watered down version of the law in the Delhi assembly in 2015 and even this was rejected by the Union home ministry for not following due process. “There were many issues in the bill. For example, the bill emphasised that one can complain about any fee hike only after the audited balance sheet of the school for that year is submitted.”
Uncertainty amid a regulatory gap
At the heart of the crisis lies a fundamental dispute over regulatory authority. The landmark 2004 Supreme Court ruling in the Modern School case established that the Delhi government could restrict fee increases to prevent “commercialisation of education” – particularly for approximately 335 schools built on land provided by the Delhi Development Authority.
“An analysis of the judgement of the court on fees says that the schools can only take the money which is required to run the school. A school cannot take money from one student for the expenses of another student. It also cannot take money for capital expenditure such as construction of buildings, installation of air conditioners etc,” Aggarwal told Newslaundry. Schools can seek up to 15 percent of capital expenditure but need to create a separate account for this and the amount can only be spent on maintenance work, he said.
Speaking of the significance of the 2004 Supreme Court order, Ashok Aggarwal said the “implication of this judgement is that many states implemented fee regulation acts. These include Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh”.
The Tamil Nadu Schools (Regulation of Collection of Fee) Act, 2009, emphasised that a committee headed by a retired high court judge would determine the fee for admission to any standard or course of study in private schools.
“While fee regulation acts by other states can not be termed perfect, at least they implemented something. However, it took years for Delhi to comply with the Supreme Court judgement, leave any regulation for fee control,” Aggarwal said.
The April 2024 High Court interim order effectively neutralised this oversight mechanism for schools on DDA land by removing the requirement for prior approval of fee increases. This created a regulatory vacuum that schools have quickly exploited.
Aprajita Gautam, president of the Delhi Parents Association, acknowledges the new government’s promise of audits but remains sceptical about immediate relief: “Auditing is not easy. It takes a lot of time and resources... there should be some interim measures for parents like issuing a direction to pay as per the last approved fee.”
“These schools got interim relief last year from a single bench…If the education department wished, it could have challenged this…But it did nothing.”
Aggarwal also pointed out that the rule 170 and 180 of Delhi School Education rule, 1973, mandates that the CAG and the Delhi accounts office should audit every school every year.
“The account and other records maintained by an unaided private school shall be subject to examination by the auditors and inspecting officers authorised by the director in this behalf and also by any officers authorised by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India,” read rule 180.
“The first and last such audit took place in 2009, that too, after high court intervention. At that time, they audited accounts of 25 private schools and out of it 20 schools were indicted,” Aggarwal added.
Newslaundry reached out to former education minister Atishi Marlena for comment. This report will be updated if they respond.
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