COME APRIL, NEW SCHOOL FEE ACT TO FACE FINAL TEST

ON Monday last, the Supreme Court hearing a batch of petitions from private school associations challenging the implementation of the new Delhi School Fee Regulation Act (2025) and related rules, said the Court’s main concern wasn’t about the merits of the law itself, but about the timing of its implementation in the middle of an ongoing academic year (2025-26).

- SIDHARTH MISHRA

Seeing achance to push ahead the implementation of the law, the Delhi government told the Court that the fee law would not be implemented in the current academic year (2025-26).

The government further told the Court that the law was to be enforced from the next academic year (2026-27) onwards. Government’s strategy worked as after its clarification, the Court said that since its intervention was concerned only with the ‘haste of implementation’, its further intervention at this stage was not necessary.

To put it simply, the Supreme Court did not strike down the law, but in a way empowered the Delhi government for its rollout to the next academic year. To be fair to the Rekha Gupta-led Delhi government, it had never promised to bring a law with retrospective effect. The passage and notification of the law too, never gave an indication that it would be implemented with retrospective effect.