new delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought response of the Centre, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Delhi government on a PIL which said that poor children studying in classes 10 and 12 of government schools would not be able to afford the board exam fees.
A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan issued notice to the Ministry of Education, CBSE and the Delhi government seeking their stand on the plea by a society which has contended that the Board "arbitrarily" enhanced the exam fees in 2019-20 and was charging the same this year too when everyone has been hit financially by the pandemic.
In 2019-20, the Delhi government footed the bill of the exam fees of students studying in class 10 and 12 in its schools, and assured the parents that the matter would be sorted for the future, said the petition by the Parents Forum for Meaningful Education, a registered society of parents and educationists.
In a similar PIL by an NGO seeking a waiver of the board exam fees, the Delhi government had told the court on September 28 that it cannot foot the bill this year as it had done last year as the amount was over Rs 100 crore. In the present plea, filed through advocates P S Sharda and Kshitij Sharda, the society has said that CBSE was charging Rs 1,500 as board exam fees for classes 10 and 12 and the amount goes up to Rs 2,400 for science stream students as they also have practicals.
The petition has contended that in the prevailing situation, parents of children in government schools may not be able to pay such amounts in one go.