New Delhi: In what comes as relief to more than 30 students of Delhi Public School (DPS) Dwarka who were expelled over unpaid hiked fees, the high court here has allowed them to resume attending classes after paying 50 percent of the increased fees.
Justice Vikas Mahajan passed the order while hearing petitions filed by more than 100 parents. The pleas demanded the reinstatement of the students expelled on 9 May.
The parents have been at loggerheads with the school administration for over a year over the fee hike issue. They alleged the school has not adhered to Directorate of Education (DoE) guidelines on fee hike. They also took to the streets many times over the past few months to protest against the school.
Delhi Parent Association vice president Manoj Sharma said that by directing that students can continue their studies upon payment of 50 percent of the hiked fee for 2024-25 onwards, while mandating compliance with the Directorate of Education’s (DoE) order for 2023-24, the court has attempted to strike a middle path.
Senior lawyer Puneet Mittal, who represented DPS Dwarka in the high court, told ThePrint that during the Aam Aadmi Party’s term, the government said it would regulate the school fee structure. While the school kept giving recommendations and proposals, the government never really approved of any of the proposals, he said.
“That’s how the whole academic years passed and children kept moving ahead in the next class,” he said, adding schools need to take care of several things including teachers’ salaries and electricity bills. “The parents kept saying that there was no prior approval of the government and it (the hike) was not in accordance with the Directorate of Education’s guidelines. This remained pending in court for a long time,” he said.
He said that in previous interim orders, the court ordered the parents to pay as per the demand of the schools, however, the parents did not follow the order. “This year, the parents again moved the court and along with that they went to the DoE and the ministry and also started protesting on roads.”
Mittal said DPS Dwarka’s stance on the whole issue has been clear. He said whenever the school asks parents what they want to pay, they always say they want to pay the fees they used to in 2015. “So they want to pay according to the fee structure that is 10 years old.”
ThePrint reached principal Priya Narayanan for a comment through text and calls but she did not respond. The report will be updated if and when a response is received.
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A long battle
For over a year, DPS Dwarka has been embroiled in a simmering dispute with a section of parents over fee hikes they allege are illegal and unapproved by DoE. The issue came to a head in April 2025, when the Delhi HC, while hearing a related petition, explicitly directed that no coercive or discriminatory action be taken against students over the fee matter.
The 16 April order by a bench of Justice Sachin Dutta underscored that the ongoing litigation over fee structure should not lead to harassment or exclusion of students.
Despite this, parents were shocked when the school expelled 32 students on 9 May, mostly children of the parents who had contested the fee hikes and were paying as per DoE-approved rates, said Saurabh Agarwal, one of the parents.
The school allegedly did so without any prior intimation. When classes resumed on 13 May after the weekend, children whose names had been “struck off” were reportedly pulled out of classrooms by bouncers and sent home without parental notification.
Previously, the parents had reported that the students were made to sit inside the library for hours, actions that the parents described as “humiliating”.
Later, in response to the growing outcry, the Delhi government constituted a committee led by the Ambedkar University Vice-Chancellor and senior DoE officials. The affected parents, including Agarwal, were called to present their cases. They submitted evidence showing that the school’s fee hike proposals defied both government orders and court directives.
The committee’s findings led the DoE to issue a fresh directive 15 May, ordering the school to immediately reinstate the expelled students. The DoE referred to the high court’s 16 April order, mandating that there must be no coercive action or discrimination against any student over the fee dispute.
As of 28 May, the school had not reinstated the affected students.
Agarwal told ThePrint that the children were removed from class WhatsApp groups, cut off from assignments and study material, and denied access to the campus, often being turned away at the school gate by security guards or bouncers.
For students in higher grades like Class 10, 11, and 12, whose academic schedules were still active before the sudden announcement of summer vacations, the impact has been especially severe. Agarwal said his daughter has been at the school since nursery and this whole experience has made her feel “anxious and isolated”.
Divya Mattey, another parent, told ThePrint that the fight of the parents was also to make their children understand how to “stand against wrong”.
“I do not want to send a message to my child that if the problem is there, you move out of the problem. It is the person who is causing the problem that has to move,” he said.
Aparajitha Gautam, president of Delhi Parents’ Association, told ThePrint that over the years, parents have been paying “legitimate fees”.
“The Delhi Parents Association wants schools across Delhi to immediately stop taking coercive actions against children despite receiving legitimate fees,” she said, adding there is a need for schools across Delhi to announce the legitimate fee structure. “This would prevent recurring issues like expulsion, withholding of transfer certificates, and student detention,” she said.
Delhi Parents Association’s Manoj Sharma said interim directions issued by the high court offers temporary relief to students “who have endured significant harassment”.
The larger, unresolved question remains the distinction between approved and unapproved fees against the proposals submitted by DPS-Dwarka to the DoE, he said.
The school’s persistent non-compliance with the DoE’s order dated May 22, 2024, which rejected the fee hike for 2023-24, has led to parents being charged unapproved fees, with no reimbursement or adjustment made despite clear directives, he said.
“Furthermore, the DoE’s inordinate delay in approving or rejecting the school’s fee proposals for 2024-25 and beyond leaves parents and students vulnerable, caught between the school’s demands and regulatory inaction. This delay victimizes innocent students, who face harassment, and parents, who bear the financial and emotional burden of prolonged uncertainty,” he added.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)