Mount Carmel on de-registration: Do not need DoE's permission, will take legal action

A day after The Indian Express reported that the Mount Carmel school, Dwarka sector 22, has been de-recognised with effect from April 1, 2019 as the school had violated land allotment terms by increasing fees without prior approval from it. The school said that it would come out clean and urged students and their parents to not panic.

The school administration, however, maintained that it has not received the notice yet. “Though we have not received the notice yet we have got to know about it from media reports. We urge the students and parents to not panic and assure that we would come out clean,” Michael Williams, the director of Mount Carmel School told PTI. “Once we receive the notice, we will take the appropriate legal remedy and we have full faith in the legal system,” he added.

The order by the Directorate of Education (DoE) said the department had no option left but to withdraw the recognition given to Mount Carmel School in Dwarka, under the Delhi School Education Act and Rules, 1973, after issuing notices and holding hearings on the matter since 2016.

The school had increased the fee by 25 per cent in 2016-2017. According to the order, there are 325 private unaided recognised schools in Delhi operating on land allotted to them by government land-owning agencies like DDA. One of the conditions for such allotment is that the schools cannot increase fee without prior approval of the Directorate of Education (DoE), as reported by Express earlier.

The school had argued that it had not been given land by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) on concessional rates, so the Delhi High Court judgment that gives the DoE the power to regulate fees of such schools was not applicable to it, the order said. The DoE, however, said the March 9, 2000 allotment letter for the land given to the school showed it had been given the property at a concessional rate.
News Source (Indian Express)