Delhi Assembly passes fee regulation Bill, AAP's amendments rejected

New Delhi: The BJP-led Delhi government's first bill regulating fee hikes by recognised private unaided schools was passed by the Assembly on Friday.

The Delhi School Education Transparency in Fixation and Regulation of Fees Bill, 2025, was passed after a four-hour debate in the House. It was the first legislation passed by the Delhi Assembly with the BJP in power after winning the Assembly polls in February this year.

Supporting the Bill during a debate in the House, Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said that it ends the wait for justice by the parents of school children in Delhi and provides them relief from worries of fee hikes by private schools.

The Bill was passed by a division of vote on all 21 sections. Forty-one BJP MLAs voted in favour of the Bill, while 17 opposition AAP members voted against it.

The BJP has a strength of 48 members in the 70-member Assembly and the AAP 22. Seven BJP and five AAP MLAs were not present in the House at the time of voting.

All eight amendments proposed by the AAP MLAs, including Leader of Opposition Atishi, were rejected in the voting.

Delhi Assembly Speaker Vijender Gupta said the Bill will be sent to Delhi Lt Governor V K Saxena for approval.

The Bill, tabled by Education Minister Ashish Sood on Monday during the Monsoon session of the Delhi Assembly, seeks to regulate fee hikes by private unaided schools in the national capital.

The Bill was passed after a lengthy debate that continued for nearly four hours and which witnessed noisy scenes. AAP MLA Amantullah Khan was marshalled out by the Speaker after he interrupted BJP legislator Arvinder Singh Lovely during the debate.

The BJP MLAs also accused Khan of issuing a threat in the House.

Sood, countering opposition's remarks over the Bill, said that its objections were an "insult" to the parents who were hit by fee hikes.

"The provisions of the Bill expose their lies, such as Atishi's claim that private schools were allowed a 10 per cent hike in fee," he said.

Citing data, Sood said that the AAP, while in power, allowed a fee hike by private schools even during the Covid-19 pandemic. There are over 1,700 private schools in Delhi, but the previous AAP regime focused only on a fee hike by 350 schools on government land.

The education minister said that the AAP government in 2015 brought a bill to regulate fee hikes, and it lacked all the provisions which their legislators are now demanding to be included in the current Bill.

Citing the Opposition's demand to send the Bill to a select committee, he said the 2015 bill tabled by the then AAP government was passed within two hours of debate, in which no opposition member was allowed to speak.

Taking a dig at Atishi, Sood mocked over the provisions of the earlier bill, questioning where the provisions were that she and her party MLAs were now demanding.

He said the Bill tabled by him laid down a strong regulatory framework to check arbitrary fee hikes by all the recognised, unaided private schools in the national capital.

"Our Bill fulfils all rules of audit and provides parents with veto power in matters of fee revision. No fee hike will materialise if they do not support it," Sood said.

Atishi charged that the Bill was not in the interest of the parents of school children.

"Until citizens’ feedback is taken into account, schools must charge only the 2024–25 fee structure and any hiked fee must be rolled back," she demanded.

She also demanded an audit of the private schools to determine their expenses and any need for raising fees. The Bill has no provision for audit, she charged.

She further claimed that the Bill took away the rights of the parents to approach courts to settle their grievances.

Participating in the debate, AAP MLA Sanjiv Jha demanded that the Bill be sent to a select committee for further debate.

BJP MLA Lovely, a former education minister in the Sheila Dikshit government, slammed the AAP for the poor condition of education during its previous government in Delhi. He said that the legislation will legalise the voice of parents of students in private schools.

AAP MLA Jarnail Singh said the Bill showed "love" of the BJP towards private school owners and claimed that it snatched the right of the parents to lodge their complaints against the fee hike.