All private schools in T.N. must display fee structure on notice boards, websites: Madras High Court
The Madras High Court on Wednesday (July 8, 2026) invoked its extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 (power to issue writs) of the Constitution and ordered
The Madras High Court on Wednesday (July 8, 2026) invoked its extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 (power to issue writs) of the Constitution and ordered that all private schools in Tamil Nadu must display their fee structure on their notice boards and websites. Justice M. Dhandapani ordered that the Director of Private Schools must ensure that the fee structure, fixed for individual schools by the government-appointed fee determination committee, gets updated by the private schools periodically on their notice boards and websites. The judge made it clear that all schools that fall under the Tamil Nadu Private Schools (Regulation) Act, 2019, must follow the directions and display not only the fees fixed by the committee but also the other fees that had been approved by the competent authority.
The directions were isssued while disposing of a writ petition filed by All India Private Educational Institutions Association, represented by its general secretary K. Palaniappan of Chennai, which had challenged a circular issued by the Director of Private Schools on June 1, 2026. The circular mandating the display of fee structure on school notice boards had been issued by the Director on the basis of an order passed by the Tamil Nadu State Information Commission on May 25, 2026, while disposing of a plea under the Right to Information Act of 2005. Assailing the TNSIC’s order and the circular on various grounds, the association had contended that such directions had been issued without analysing whether the RTI Act would apply to private unaided educational institutions and whether those institutions would fall under the definition of the term ‘public authority.’ The judge agreed with the association that private educational institutions, which were neither substantially financed nor controlled by the State/Centre would not fall within the ambit of ‘public authority’ and therefore, the direction issued by the TNSIC’s order would not stand the test of legal scrutiny.
Nevertheless, pointing out that the private schools fall within the regulatory mechanism of the law passed by the State legislature to govern them, the judge held that the schools were bound to make their fee structure public and the High Court could issue such a direction by exercising its extraordinary jurisdiction. Parents
looking for a good choice of school for their children must be able to transparently know about the fee collected by individual schools so that they could make an informed choice and do not end up burning a hole in their pockets after admitting the children to those schools, Justice Dhandapani added.
The BriefWire