The next hearing of the case is scheduled for tomorrow. The trustees, in their plea, claimed they lacked funds to pay the teaching and non-teaching staff of the pre-primary and primary sections. The school's secondary section is funded by a state government grant. The Dynansampada school is situated in the Shivajinagar area of Govandi, and its students mostly comprise slum children. The trustees' petition has been clubbed with that of the teachers, which was filed in January. The teachers say they've been paid less than half the BMC scales and also forced to sign receiptsshowing they had received salaries in keeping with the scales. For at least five months in 1994, they were denied their salaries. In 1995-96, they received 75 per cent of the BMC scales; between June 1996 and January 1997, they got 50 per cent, and since then, they've received a mere 40 per cent of the scales. Ten of the 22 primary teaching and non-teaching staff refused to collect their salaries all through 1997 as a mark of protest.

The trust had, in 1995, urged BMC to give it grants, but BMC refused, saying the school didn't meet its criteria. The school didn't have a Building Completion Certificate, essential to get a grant. In June this year, the trustees filed a plea challenging BMC's refusal and explaining the financial crunch the school faced as it couldn't even hike fees beyond a certain level because it catered to slum children. The teachers, on their part, had approached the Mumbai Khazgi Prathamik Shikshak Shikshaketar Karmachari Sangh in 1997. The union, representing primary school teachers inMumbai, advised them to seek legal intervention, said the union's vice-president, S R Khopkar. The teachers filed a case in HC in January 1998.

In an interim order in February and another in April, the court ordered the management to pay teachers for the first four months of 1998, this time according to BMC's scales. But parents of students say the trust shouldn't have any difficulty in running the school, given the ``donations'' sought at the time of admission. A trustee, Shankar P Shedge, maintains that the school has never accepted donations. The school raised the fees for its primary section in June 1997 from Rs 60 to Rs 70, and in June 1998 to Rs 100. During the same period, the fee for the pre-primary section was raised from Rs 70 to Rs 150. In June 1998, the parents united under the banner of the Palak Kruti Samiti to protest the fee hike. The Samiti has, with the help of an NGO Apnalaya, since made representations to the state education department and the mayor, but their pleas have been ignored.Siraj Momin, an Apnalaya worker, said the trustees were quick to hike fees, but they haven't bothered to maintain the school premises. Shedge admitted the trust is in dire straits, and that teachers were paid only a percentage of their salaries. ``But if we don't hike fees, how will we meet the expenditure?'' he asked.