GHAZIABAD: In a major victory for parents fighting against 'illegal charges' being taken by private schools, Presidium School Indirapuram has decided to keep in abeyance the transfer certificates issued to 19 students after their parents refused to pay the annual and development charges for two quarters.The Ghaziabad administration has also directed the school to hold the payment of the annual and development charges till March 31, 2018 saying that the state government is working on a law in relation to the issue.The moves comes after continued protests from parents and multiple meetings between the school authorities, officials of the Ghaziabad administration and the parents fighting against the charges.As many as 45 parents were issued the TCs by the school in July and August in parts after their parents refused to submit the increased fee according to the new fee structure of 2017-18 along with annual and development charges.Following the incident, parents met several authorities including the Meerut mandal commissioner Prabhat Kumar, former Ghaziabad DM Ministhy S seeking revocation of the TCs.Parents said that they were subsequently given deadlines by the school authorities to pay the fees."After the school pressured us for payment of annual and development charges, many of the parents paid the same fearing about their children's future. However, 19 of us have not paid the charges as the same are illegal and the Joint Education Director (Meerut) has restrained the school from charging fees under the heads through a letter dated January 11, 2017," Atul Srivasatava, one of the parents who have not paid these charges told TOI.While the children were earlier attending the school despite the TCs, they were not being allowed inside the school since August 25, following which some of them sat on indefinite strike against the school authorities.A meeting was held between seven of the parents and the school authorities on Tuesday following which an agreement was arrived upon by the school.According to the minutes of the meeting released by the ADM (Finance and Revenue) Rajesh Yadav, in the meeting it was decided that the two sides will abide by whatever arrangement will be done in the law/guidelines/government order issued by the government or the order of the Allahabad high court as one of the parents went to court.The children have resumed classes from Wednesday.Smriti Nanda, Zonal head, Presidium Indirapuram told TOI that the school has decided to keep the TCs in abeyance keeping in view the interest of the kids. "Exams are also approaching and it was in the children's interest that the kids' not be sitting at home. It has been decided that those parents who have not paid the charges other than the annual and development charges, will pay them. We will abide by the guidelines of the state government or the court order," she said.

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