The Supreme Court has ruled that fees fixed by colleges offering professional courses at the start of the academic year cannot be changed midstream unless there are "very strong and compelling reasons".
The court partly allowed an appeal filed by Dr B.C. Roy Engineering College and several other professional colleges in Bengal challenging a Calcutta High Court judgment on the issue.
A bench of Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe, quoting statistics, noted that students pursuing professional courses “spend remarkably higher amounts on their education and the estimates reveal that fee charged in professional courses is reported to be 711% more than the general courses”.
“For the overwhelming majority of households, the fee payable for a professional course constitutes a substantial part of the family’s income and savings; it is not a matter of incidental expenditure. The parents make the provision for payment of fee payable for the professional courses with the aspiration that their children will acquire better qualifications, secure better opportunities, and build a future that may be better than their own. Many students and families also depend on educational loans...,” Justice Narasimha observed.
The bench was dealing with an appeal filed by the educational institutions challenging a Calcutta High Court judgment quashing the decision of the colleges to enhance fees midstream.
The Supreme Court said: “While we uphold the decision of the division bench of the High Court that the fees determined at the commencement of the course cannot be varied midstream.... we have held that determination of the fee payable for professional education such as medicine, engineering, pharmacy etc. conducted by professional higher education institutions (HEIs) involves balancing of two legitimate interests.
"Firstly, the interest of students and their parents in fixation of a reasonable fee, as also the certainty about the quantum and the time. Secondly, the interest of self-financing HEIs in securing adequate resources for developing necessary infrastructure and provide quality education.”