The High Court yesterday ordered the government to take action against the managing committees of schools charging extra fees from Secondary School Certificate candidates.

During hearing a suomoto rule, it also asked the government to submit a report after complying with the order before it by January 6, Deputy Attorney General Tapas Kumar Biswas told The Daily Star.

An HC bench fixed January 6 for passing further order on this issue, he said.

Following a newspaper report, the same bench on November 11 last year issued the suomoto rule upon the authorities concerned of the government to explain why charging SSC candidates extra examination fees should not be declared illegal.

During a hearing on the rule, the court on January 6 this year ordered the government to make the schools in Dhaka refund extra fees charged from SSC candidates by January 20.

It also said the existing management committees of those schools would otherwise be cancelled and the members be barred from holding any position in such committees for three years.

Yesterday, Supreme Court lawyer Mozammel Hossain placed another report published in The Daily Sun on November 17 this year headlined "SSC students forced to pay extra exam fees" before the HC bench.

The report said the authorities of different high schools in Barisal are imposing excessive fees on the guardians of SSC examinees for the examination, ignoring the instruction from the Barisal Education Board.

The school authorities are collecting an additional Tk 500 to 2,000 from each SSC examinee in the name of tuition fees, coaching, management, development, magazine, sports, milad mahfil, mosques, salaries of class IV employees and others.

The education board has fixed the fees between Tk 1,355 to Tk 1,545 for the SSC examinees of different groups, according to the report.