Parents protested at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi last year against arbitrary fee hike by private schools and DPS Dwarka school. | Photo credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar
The Delhi government on Monday (February 2, 2026) informed the Supreme Court that it will not implement the Delhi Education (Transparency in Fee Fixation and Regulation) Act, 2025, which seeks to regulate fee fixation by private schools in the state capital, from the academic year 2025-26.
Also Read |SC questions Delhi govt over ‘rushed’ introduction of new law regulating private school fees
A bench headed by Justice PS Narasimha responded to Additional Solicitor General SV Raju’s submission for the Director of Education, Government of Delhi that “sanity seems to have finally prevailed”.
In an earlier court hearing, the Bench had questioned the “rushed implementation” of the 2025 Act by the government.
“Our concern was about the hasty implementation of the law. We would have stayed. But it seems the better has prevailed for them (Delhi government) and they have said that the law will be implemented only from next year,” Justice Narasimha observed.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi and Shyam Divan said the government still insists on applying the 2025 Act for the academic year 2025-2026 if it wins the pending case in the Delhi High Court.
“The fee for the academic year 2025-2026 was fixed in March-April 2025. The law came into force in December 2025. How can they apply the 2025 law retroactively to the fees fixed under the old central law?” Mr. Rohatgi submitted.
Justice Narasimha said the moot point could be taken up in the Supreme Court. The bench said the high court’s intervention ended with the government declaring that the law would not be implemented in 2025-2026. The facts and right to challenge the law must be raised in the Supreme Court, Justice Narsimha told the senior counsel.
Mr. Rohatgi said the 2025 Act affected about 1,000 schools in the state capital and thousands of school children. At his request, the court asked the High Court to quickly decide on the proposals submitted to it.
The Supreme Court has previously found the goals of the 2025 law to be beneficial, but found fault only with the inadvertent implementation at the end of the current academic year.
“We are totally in favor of the legislation, but its current form of implementation is unviable…You will force people overnight to get up and do it. It is an ideal law passed for a very good purpose, but it must be implemented in the right way,” the court had earlier said.
The new state law mandates that any increase in fees charged by private schools must be approved through a two-tier regulatory framework involving school-level committees and district appeals bodies. Under this framework, each private school must set up a School Level Fee Regulatory 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 2, 2026 12:51 PM IST
