Cheating case filed against Narayana High School

Hyderabad: A cheating case has been registered in the Narayanguda po-lice station against Narayana Concept High School at Nara-yanguda after an RTI activist lodged a complaint about “non-adherence” of norms.

Activist Vijay Gopal alleged that the school was not adhering to norms of the AP Educ-ational Institutions (Regulati-on of Admission and Prohibi-tion of capital fee) Act, 1983” as also orders released by the state government in 2009 asking the school managements follow certain norms and regulating the maximum amount that can be levied by the scho-ols from students, terming it as “tuition fee or school fee.”

Non-adherence to these orders is a violation of Section 188 of IPC and a cognizable offence, on the part of the school, he alleged.

The complainant said the school “had not obtained any such approval” and was charging exorbitant amounts as school fee from the parents. He named the Narayana Group chairman Dr P. Narayana and the management and correspondent of the Narayanguda branch and directors of the group as the accused in the complaint.

As per the Act, educational institutions are strictly prohibited from asking parents to pay a donation or any other one-time fee apart from tuition fee for admission of students. Any other element not directly inv-olved with education of a child is required, at best, to be an op-tional element for the parents to choose or reject, he said.

“This school is charging an admission fee of up to Rs 10,000 and taking a building fee from parents separately from Nur-sery to Class X level, which is in violation of Section 5 of APEI Act 1983 and a violation of the GO Ms 91 of 2009; and of Section 188 of IPC by way of a disobedience of the GOs issued by the government/public servant during 2009,” Mr Vijay alleged.