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The Supreme Court has ruled that tuition fees must always be affordable, arguing that education is not a business for profit. The order of the Andhra Pradesh High Court that overturned the state government’s decision to raise the annual tuition fees fee for medical colleges to Rs 24 lakh was upheld by a bench headed by Justice MR Shah.
The reasoning of the Supreme Court Before the Supreme Court, counsel for the appellant, senior advocate K.V. Viswanathan, argued that the requirement to pay stipends to students was implemented in 2016 and that college tuition fees had increased between 2011 and 2017.Consequently, the colleges would have suffered a significant loss as a result of the 2011 fee. He argued that as a result, the tuition fees would undoubtedly rise. He prayed that the respective colleges might not be ordered to refund the money at this point.
Senior advocate Basava Prabhu S. Patil, counsel for the students, vehemently opposed the prayer by the medical colleges to not refund the money at this point. He said that the Telangana High Court had set aside a similar G.O. issued by the State of Telangana and directed the state government to refund the money paid in excess under the illegal G.O.
Patil argued that private medical colleges, who were the beneficiaries of the illegal G.O. that was issued on the representations made by them, could not be allowed to retain the amount that they had recovered on the basis of the illegal G.O. He also said that the G.O. dated September 6, 2017, had an exorbitant increase in tuition fees to INR 24 lakhs, and parents had to use education loans to pay for tuition fees, which came with a higher interest rate.
The AFRC’s attorney, Krishna Dev Jagarlamudi, argued that the state government unilaterally increased the tuition fees fee without waiting for the AFRC’s report or recommendations during the investigation and proceedings to determine the block fee for 2017-2020.
Jagarlamudi claimed that, in fact, the AFRC requested relevant materials from the medical colleges in a notification dated December 8, 2016, proposing a fee structure revision. The association of private medical colleges wrote to the government to request a revision, which the state government had illegally permitted, while the review and determination of fees was pending.
After hearing both sides, the Supreme Court decided that the fee must be set in accordance with the fixation rules and have a direct connection to the factors outlined in Rule 4 of the Rules, 2006:
(a) The professional institution’s location;
- b) The professional course’s nature;
- c) The price of the infrastructure that is available;
- d) The money spent on administration and upkeep;
- e) A respectable surplus that is required for the professional Institution’s expansion and development;
(f) Any revenue lost as a result of students in the reserved category or other economically disadvantaged groups having their tuition fees waived;
Conclusion
In light of the foregoing, the bench denied the appeal and imposed costs of INR 5 lakhs on both the appellant medical college and the Andhra Pradesh state government. The court ruled that the appellant and the state of Andhra Pradesh would share the expense of INR 5 lakh, which had to be deposited with the Supreme Court’s Registry within six weeks of the judgment’s delivery. The bench directed that the same amount be distributed equally to the National Legal Services Authority and the Supreme Court’s Mediation and Conciliation Project Committee.