‘Irregularities’ found during inspection at Indian School

We were) shocked to see the irregularities. The school was found violating at least 10 norms, which all educational institutes are expected to follow.

PANKAJ PUSHKAR, MLA and a member the committee

NEW DELHI: The Delhi legislative assembly’s petitions committee on Monday inspected The Indian School in south Delhi’s Sadiq Nagar and claimed several ‘irregularities’ such as ‘illegal construction’, ‘tampering with class 11 results’ and ‘irrational hike in tuition fee’.

The inspection was conducted following allegations of ‘fee irregularities’ made by students’ parents. The school has denied the allegations.

The school is built on land allotted by the Delhi Development Authority on the condition that fees cannot be increased without the Delhi government’s permission.

The committee headed by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislator from Greater Kailash Saurabh Bharadwaj found the “irregularities” during their visit on Monday.

“We visited the school as members of the petitions committee and shocked to see the irregularities. The school was found violating at least 10 norms, which all educational institutes are expected to follow,” said Pankaj Pushkar, an MLA and one of the members of the committee.

According to Suman Satish, the counsel for the petition committee and a parent of a student studying at The Indian School, the administration was hiding a fully developed basement, which was against the municipal corporation’s building plan and completion certificate.

“The school has illegally built eight classrooms on the fourth floor. Despite having a surplus of ₹23 crore in its account, the school increased fees. It was found that the number of EWS (economi- cally weaker sections) students was far less that mandated by the government,” she said.

The committee alleged that the school was failing class 11 students to improve its class 12 board exam results. “It was found that a large number of class 12 students were registered as open students but were attending classes,” Satish said.

Principal Taniya Joshi denied the allegations. “I don’t think any school will fail its students to improve its board results. These allegations are completely baseless. As far as fee hike issue is concerned, we had moved court over it and the matter is still subjudice. I cannot comment much on the issue. We replied to all questions they asked during the inspection.”

The committee had on Saturday sent a notice to the school, informing about the visit.

The Delhi government had last week derecognised Mount Carmel School in Dwarka for “irrationally” raising tuition fee and issued notices to two other private schools, directing them to refund fees to parents with 9% interest.