The Supreme Court has ordered all private schools to restore their fees to that of January 2017. Any raises since 2017 were declared void.

The verdict was given by a three-member bench comprising of Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Faisal Arab on appeals regarding excessive rises by private institutions.

It stated that private schools had violated the law by increasing prices which were not in line with regulations. Any excess charged since 2017 will be adjusted to future fees, the court added. The verdict read, “It will be deemed that there was no increase in fee since 2017 and fees were frozen at the rates prevailing in January 2017.’

The court also ruled that any future increases should be in line with the laws and any recalculation to fees will use 2017 as the base year. Schools will only be allowed to increase their fees by 5% or less a year.

The court also prohibited private schools to recover any fees that was reduced in response to the court’s ruling in 2018 which ordered an immediate fee decrease of  20% on schools charging more than Rs 5000 per month.

All future recalculation and rises will be supervised and approved by a regulatory body. This verdict also provided for close monitoring of private schools and added “The regulators shall closely monitor the fee being charged by private schools to ensure strict compliance with the law and the rules/regulations.” Additionally, complaint cells will be established to entertain any future violation of these laws.