Delhi school bill claims parents get ‘veto power’ against fee hikes; but do they?
Parents find mandatory representation on school-level, district and final review committees and stringent penalties are defined — but gaps persist

The Delhi assembly on 8 August, Friday, passed the School Fee Regulation Bill, 2025, claims to grant ‘veto power’ to parents on decisions regarding fee hikes, ensuring that school managements cannot unilaterally impose fee increases.
Delhi education minister Ashish Sood said in the assembly, "If even a single parent member disagrees, the proposal for fee hike will not be approved. They will have veto power, and the management cannot impose its decision unilaterally." (This comment seems to refer not to the powers of the entire parent body, but to specifically the parent representatives in the school-level committee instituted per the new Bill — more on which below; but the Bill does not actually specify any veto power or refer to a single parent's objections in any respect.)
During the four-hour discussion on the Bill and the voting on it thereafter, 41 members from the ruling BJP and 17 lawmakers from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) were present in the Assembly.
Fines for fee hikes, if ‘arbitrary’
According to the provisions of the Delhi School Education Transparency in Fixation and Regulation of Fees Bill, 2025, schools found arbitrarily hiking fees could face penalties ranging from fines to losing their right to propose fee revisions in the future.
The Bill lays out that if a school charges fees beyond the permitted limit, it must refund the excess amount within 20 working days. Failing to do so will invite escalating penalties — double the fine after 20 days, triple after 40 days, and continuing to increase accordingly for every further 20-day delay.
According to the Bill, a first-time violation will attract a fine between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 5 lakh. Repeat offences will lead to penalties ranging from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.
Persistent violators may also be barred from holding official posts in the school management.
Hierarchy of committees also empowers parents at every level
The Bill also mandates the formation of three committees to oversee the fee regulation process — one each at the school level, district level and a higher-level Revision Committee, which will act as the final authority in fee-related disputes.
Each private unaided school (whether following an Indian or an international curriculum); minority-run school; and any school allocated government land at concessional rates will also be required to establish a School Level Fee Regulation Committee by 15 July of every academic year, under the bill.
The Bill specifies that the school-level committee will be chaired by a management representative, with the principal as secretary.
It will also include three teachers, five parents (selected by a draw of lots), one nominee from the DoE, at least one member from the SC/ST/OBC categories, and at least two women. Parents cannot serve on the committee for more than two consecutive years and will be eligible for renomination only after a two-year gap.
The committee's tenure will be one academic year.
According to the Bill, the list of committee members must be displayed within seven working days of its formation, and the committee must conduct its first general meeting before 15 August.
Parents are also represented in the higher-level committees:
The Bill further proposes that the District Committee will be chaired by the district director of education and include the zone's deputy director of education, two principals nominated by the directorate of education (DoE), and two parent representatives also nominated by the DoE.
The Revision Committee, as outlined in the Bill, will be headed by the director of education and will include an eminent educationist, a chartered accountant, the controller of accounts, representatives of schools and parents, and a former education official. Its decisions will be binding for a period of three years.
Appeals related to fee disputes can first be taken to the District Committee — if 15 per cent of the parents disagree with the school-level committee’s decision on fee hikes, it can escalate the matter. If still unresolved at the district level, the matter can be escalated to the Revision Committee, whose decisions will be final and binding, as stated in the Bill.
Balancing schools’ autonomy and oversight
The Bill also mentions that while schools retain the autonomy to propose fee structures, it must be done within a prescribed framework.
For the academic year 2025–26, the fees already charged from 1 April 2025 will be considered the ‘proposed fees’ for the session. These are now being regarded as the baseline.
In any academic year, the proposed fee must be ratified by the school-level committee by 15 September, failing which the proposal must be escalated to the district-level committee by 30 September.
Once a proposed hike is allowed, it cannot be further upgraded for the next three years, per the Bill.
Clause 5(8), which seems to be open to interpretation, however, says a group of aggrieved parents — this is ostensibly the 15 per cent of the parent population earlier mentioned — can file an appeal to the District Committee if they disagree with the school-level committee’s decision to allow a proposed fee hike.
Also a tad nebulous is Clause 7(8), which holds that the District Committee must communicate its decision on the fees within 30 days of an appeal and not more than 45 days in the same academic year.
If the parents or parent–teacher association remain dissatisfied, they in turn have another 30 days to appeal to the Revision Committee.
Amongst the factors to be taken into account in fixing a fee are:
the location of the school
available infrastructure (which is to be compare to the claims in the school prospectus or website as well)
administration and maintenance costs
further sources of funds, which may include NRIs, charities and government schemes
qualifications and salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff
expenditure on students by the school as a proportion of the institution’s total income
What are the possible gaps in the Bill?
Opposition MLAs such as Atishi last week walked out of the assembly over the setting aside of their proposed amendments.
Some of their objections, however, seem to be contradicted by the claims of the Delhi education ministry on the Bill finally passed:
1. Parents’ veto power limitations: While Sood insisted a single veto from a single parent will stop a fee hike, Atishi had raised an objection that the veto clause calls for a 15 per cent objection threshold (meaning, at least 15 per cent of the parent population must object to stop the hike or refer the matter to the district committee). The AAP proposed that the threshold for escalation of an objection should be a total of 15 parents.
2. Strength of parent representation: In the school-level committee, five parents are nominated in a total apparent strength of 11 — which means they cannot constitute a majority. The AAP (Aam Aadmi Party) had proposed 10 parents in the committee.
Most private schools in Delhi per law have to have 5 per cent students from the EWS (economically weaker section of society) population. For them, in particular, there is little chance of representation — and yet the biggest burden proportionately from any hike.
3. Audit of school accounts and expenses: In an interview to the Indian Express, Atishi had alleged that the validity of fee hikes — as per the earlier 2015 Bill brought by the AAP that was blocked by the Centre — can be only determined by auditing the schools existing accounts. For, she posited, how is one to know a hike is fair unless one knows the school is not sitting on a pile of funds already?
Atishi referred back to a past audit where a school was found to have spent Rs 35 crore to purchase a farmhouse — which, she argues, is hardly likely to have been approved by parents as good reason for a fee hike, as opposed to paying teachers a viable salary.
4. Blocking legal recourse and judicial oversight: One of the objections raised by the AAP has been the finality of the Revision Committee’s decision, because of a clause that bars parents from taking the matter to the civil courts.
5. Lack of public consultation: Another of the Opposition’s objections has been around the lack of input from the general public as well as education experts. The AAP had called for the Bill to be placed before a select committee including all stakeholders — which would also include both BJP and AAP MLAs. Until this has been done, the party demands, the current fees must remain frozen.
6. Too little, too late: One of the objections has been that the BJP government’s timing. Being passed in the monsoon session (having originally been mooted in April) has ensured that many schools already hiked their fees this April — which, allegedly, involved high percentages that now stand accepted as this year’s ‘proposed’ fee. In effect, the Opposition argues, the passage of the Bill at this time is mere eyewash — when instead, the Bill could have mandated freezing the 2024-25 fees for this session until audits were carried out or a new 2025-26 proposal reviewed by the school-level committee.
Some private schools in Delhi hiked fees by as much as 30–45% in this current session, reportedly, resulting in collective parents’ protests at Jantar Mantar as recently as 20 July.
The AAP also alleges that its own ability to take decision on school fee hikes proposed last year, before the BJP came to power, were stymied by the Centre repeatedly transferring the officers meant to actually evaluate the proposals and decide on them — to hamstring the AAP government.
With PTI inputs
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