There can’t be uniform fee for various courses, rules High Court

The High Court has said that there cannot be a uniform fee for various courses run in different educational institutions.

A division bench headed by Justice Alok Aradhe observed this in a recent judgment while granting relief to several deemed universities.

The petitioners - Manipal Academy of Higher Education, JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research, Nitte University, Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education, Yenepoya University, KLE Academy of Higher Education, MS Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences and PES University - challenged the orders passed by the fee regulatory committee in June-July 2018, applicable to the academic year 2018-19.

The challenge was to the fee fixed for MBBS course, wherein the committee had fixed Rs 6.83 lakh as the fee for first year, adding an additional amount of 8 per cent over the fee collected for the academic year 2017-18.

The same methodology was adopted for the engineering course fees as well.

The petitioners contended that the fixation of fee is within their jurisdiction and argued that the committee ought to have granted an opportunity to the petitioners to produce the material with regard to fixation of fee.

It was argued that the provisions of the Karnataka Professional Educational Institution (Regulation of Admission and Determination of Fee) Act, 2006, are not applicable to them.

The bench noted that the Apex Court in the P A Inamdar case judgment had clearly held that the cost of education may vary from institution to institution on many variable factors.

“It has been further held that it is also recognised that the educational institutions may charge the fee that would take care of the various expenses incurred by these educational institutions, in addition to making provisions for the expansion of education for future generations. Thus, in fixing the fee structure, the various factors like infrastructure facilities available, investment made, salaries paid to the teachers and staff and future plans for expansion and/or betterment of institutions, all the exceptions have to be taken into account,” the bench said.

The bench said that the materials placed before the court clearly indicate that the Fee Regulatory Committee passed the orders in violation of the principles of natural justice and in violation of the statutory mandate contained in section 7 (1) of the Karnataka Professional Educational Institution (Regulation of Admission and Determination of Fee) Act, 2006, and merely on the basis of the fee fixed for academic year 2017-2018, clearly depicting non application of mind.