Giving an important judgment in the issue on a writ filed by parents of students studying in a convent school in Pune, the court said that the private unaided schools had the rights to decide on the fees in their school and it was not the right of the government to decide in the matter.

The state government introduced a Government Resolution (GR) on 15th July against the private schools decision to hike school fees from June. The private schools then approached the court against the GR passed by the state government.

In today's court hearing, the judges said that it was not within the purview of the state government to control school fees in private unaided schools but that of the schools and squashing the GR said, the schools were free to decide upon the fees. With this judgment, no law exists to restrict and control fee hikes in school.

Meanwhile, the parents of Rosary High School of Pune, who had been protesting  strongly against the hike in the school for the past two and half months received a big jolt due to the court judgment.

The parents had even resorted to hunger strikes to force the school to roll back what they called "unreasonable" fee hikes. The school had frozen the fee hike after a meeting between education department officials, the school management and the parents. After the meeting, the management of the school along with several other schools in the state had rushed to the court against the government.

A official of the state education department speaking to Arab News after the judgement was delivered said " Now if the government wants to regulate and keep the school fee hike under control, then it will have to bring in a strong law, which will stand scrutiny in the courts."

A parent commenting on the judgment said that the squashing of the GR was an insult to the governor of the state, as all GR's are issued in his name and orders, though the governor himself may not be aware of such GR's; yet the practice continues to use his name on all GR's. It is time that the governor took note and approved only those GR's which are read and approved by him. "As of today any one in the government can issue GR's in the name of the Governor; this should stop or the government will continue to get strictures from the courts," he said.