Parents staging a protest over arbitrary fee hike by private schools and against DPS school Dwarka, at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi last year.
| Photo Credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar
The Delhi government informed the Supreme Court on Monday (February 2, 2026) that it would not implement the Delhi School Education (Transparency in Fixation and Regulation of Fees) Act, 2025, which seeks to regulate the fixation of fees by private schools in the national capital, from the 2025-2026 academic year.
A Bench headed by Justice P.S. Narasimha reacted to the submission made by Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, for the Director of Education, Delhi government, that “it seems better sense has prevailed finally”.
In the previous court hearing, the Bench had questioned the “rushed implementation” of the 2025 Act by the government.
“Our concern was about the rushed implementation of the Act. We would have stayed. BUt better seems to have prevailed for them (Delhi government), and they have said the law would be implemented only from the next year,” Justice Narasimha remarked.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi and Shyam Divan said the government was still insisting on applying the 2025 Act to the academic year 2025-2026 if it won the pending case in the Delhi High Court.
“The fee for the 2025-2026 academic year was fixed in March-April 2025. The Act came into existence in December 2025. How can they apply the 2025 Act retrospectively on fees fixed under the old Central law?” Mr. Rohatgi submitted.
Justice Narasimha said the point of challenge could be raised in the High Court. The Bench said the intervention of the apex court ended with the government’s submission that the Act would not be implemented from 2025-2026. The facts and law of the challenge to the law must be raised in the High Court, Justice Narsimha conveyed to the senior counsel.
Mr. Rohatgi submitted that the 2025 Act affected about a 1000 schools in the national capital and lakhs of school children. The Bench, on his request, asked the High Court to decide the petitions before it expeditiously.
The Supreme Court had earlier found the objectives of the 2025 Act beneficial, but only found fault with the knee-jerk implementation at the fag end of the current academic year.
“We are completely in favour of the legislation, but its present form of implementation is unviable…You are forcing people overnight to get up and do it. It is an ideal Act enacted for a very good purpose, but it must be implemented in a proper way,” the court had observed previously.
The new State law mandates that any increase in fees charged by private schools must be cleared through a two-tier regulatory framework comprising school-level committees and district-level appellate authorities. Under this framework, every private school is required to constitute a School Level Fee Regulation Committee (SLFRC), consisting of representatives of the school management, the principal, three teachers, five parents, and one nominee of the Directorate of Education.
Published – February 02, 2026 12:51 pm IST
