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Recently, the supreme court has observed that the Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee has authority over the regulation of fees for the MBBS students who are studying in private, self-financing medical colleges. The committee has to ensure that the fee is neither non-reasonable nor exploitative. The bench comprising Justices L. Nageswara Rao and S. Ravindra Bhat observed that the committee can order the management to provide any details needed for the purpose of arriving at a decision that the fee demanded by the management is neither unreasonable nor exploitative in nature. The Court found that the High Court had made a mistake in ordering the Committee to take into account only the audited balance sheets and, in the absence of audited balance sheets, the preliminary profit and loss statements in order to set the fee.
The State had moved to the Supreme Court, aggrieved by the order of the Kerala High Court, to inspect the audited balance sheets of the Committee purely for the purpose of determining whether or not the expenditure shown by the management should be exempted. The state has argued that the directions issued by the High Court were contradictory with Section 11 of the 2017 Act, which refers to aspects that had to be taken into account in the assessment of fees by the Committee.
The supreme court has observed that it is within the powers of the committee under section 11the 2017 act. While the court agrees with the submission made on behalf of the management that the fee as suggested by them should be considered by the Committee, it is no longer res Integra that regulations are subject to the right given to the institutions to set fees for professional courses. It is not necessary to reiterate that unaided professional institution are free to determine the fee to be charged subject to the fact that the fee would not result in profiteering or capitation fee collection. Fee control shall be within the scope of the Committee, ensuring that the fee is non-exploitative and reasonable.
The bench then issued the following directions: The Committee is to immediately examine the private self-financing colleges' strategies for fee fixing from 2017-18 onwards. It may order the management to include any information needed to make a conclusion that the charge proposed by the management is neither unreasonable in nature nor exploitative. The entire exercise is to be performed within a span of three months.
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