High court asks Pondy to fix PG medical, dental course fees in deemed universities

High court asks Pondy to fix PG medical, dental course fees in deemed universities

Bosco.Dominique@timesgroup.com

Puducherry:16.01.2021

The long-drawn battle to regulate the fees in the deemed universities in the Union territory of Puducherry ended in favour of the student community with a Madras high court bench declaring that the government can fix fee for the postgraduate medical and dental courses offered by the universities.

Disposing of a public interest litigation filed by advocate V B R Menon, the Madras high court bench comprising justice T S Sivagnanam and justice V Bhavani Subbaroyan declared that the Puducherry fee committee shall fix the fee for postgraduate medical and dental courses from the academic year 2017-18 to 2020-21 in the deemed universities.

The fees shall be fixed on an ad-hoc basis until a committee constituted by the University Grants Commission (UGC) finalises the fee structure as per an order passed by the Supreme Court on April 15 in 2019. The Supreme Court, however, had directed the UGC committee not to implement the fee structure until further orders.

The bench also directed the National Medical Commission to determine the fee structure as per the NMC Act, 2019 for the academic year 2021-22. The Puducherry fee committee had fixed ₹5.5 lakh per annum as the fee under government quota and ₹14 lakh per annum under management quota in private medical colleges. However, deemed universities continued to charge nearly double the sum as fees, prompting Menon to file the PIL. The then first bench, while passing an order on June 16, 2017, opined that the fee collected by the deemed universities is 'unreasonably high, arbitrary and prohibitory.’ The PIL-petitioner had argued that many students, who had cleared the admission process, undergone counselling and allowed provisional admission have not been able to join by reason of their inability to deposit ₹40 lakh to ₹50 lakh at short notice and the seats are lying vacant.

The court said erstwhile members of the Centralized Admission Committee (Centac), Puducherry and erstwhile officials of the directorate of health and family welfare services had wrongly interpreted legal position against the interest of the student community. It said the decision was overruled by the Supreme Court and, therefore, the view of the Centac members and health officials are 'non-est, in so far as it relates to the prescription of fees by the deemed universities'. The CBI, anti-corruption branch (ACB), Chennai, which booked 13 people, including government officials, on charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating and criminal misconduct by a public servant in September 2017, later said that 'no action is contemplated against six government officials - the then Centac chairman, the then director (health and family welfare), the then secretary (health), the then Centac convener, the then Centac joint convener and the then Centac coordinator.