HC tells college to pay student ₹25k

HC tells college to pay student ₹25k

Institute Had Failed To Cancel His Admission

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Ahmedabad:07.02.2021

The Gujarat high court ordered an ayurveda college to pay Rs 25,000 to a student besides the fees for retaining his admission even after Gujarat Ayurveda University cancelled his admission and ordered that his fees be returned.

The case involved Utsav Patel, who cleared his board exams in 2019 with 43.9% and got admission to the Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) course at JS Ayurveda Mahavidhyalaya in Nadiad. Patel cleared the NEET exam and got admission in the all-India quota through the centralized admission process.

When the university learned that students had been admitted to BAMS courses despite scoring less than 50% in the board exams, which is the minimum eligibility for admission. In February 2020, the university informed the colleges to cancel such admissions and return their fees to the students. The college did not do this for three months.

When Patel learned of the university’s decision to cancel his admission, he moved the high court stating that it was not his fault and that he paid fees and continued to attend classes online during the lockdown. The university as well as the central government reiterated that the admission was cancelled because the student did not fulfill the eligibility criteria. Moreover, Patel was not the only student whose admission was cancelled.

The college, on the other hand, expressed ignorance about the affair. This infuriated Justice Biren Vaishnav, who observed, “Much could be said about the recalcitrance and negligence of the college for which the student has suffered but for the college granting admission in the face of him being ineligible and the petitioner being constrained to approach this court and particularly when the petitioner continued to pursue his studies albeit online with the college’s stand being that it only was an executing and implementing authority shows a complete indiscreet response.”

The court rejected the student’s petition against admission cancellation, but ordered the college to pay Rs 25,000 to him for forcing him into litigation.