Summary
In a dispute over a retrospective upward revision of MBBS fees for students admitted in 2018, the Supreme Court modified the High Court's interim order: on each student depositing a further Rs 7.50 lakhs and undertaking to pay any balance found due, the college must return their original admission documents so they can pursue postgraduate studies and practise, pending final decision of the writ petitions.
Issues
- What equitable interim arrangement should govern students who had completed their medical course and internship but could not get back their original documents pending the High Court's decision on a revised fee demand.
- Whether the High Court's interim order, admitting the writ petitions and listing them months later while conditioning return of documents on payment of the full revised fee, required modification.
Provisions considered
- Sections 2, 4 and 12, Uttarakhand Unaided Private Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Fixation of Fee) Act, 2006Noted as the framework under which the Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee fixes fees for unaided private professional institutions and an appellate authority hears appeals; the committee's fee fixation, extended by the appellate authority to the 2018-19 batch, was the subject of the pending challenge. The Court expressed no view on its merits. (¶¶ 2, 5, 16)
Held
- The fee notified at the time of admission was expressly subject to the outcome of writ petitions then pending, and the students' challenge to the revised fee had not attained finality because the High Court had admitted their petitions; the students had meanwhile paid substantial sums (about Rs 34 lakhs per All India quota student and about Rs 28 lakhs per State quota student, inclusive of an adjusted security deposit and instalments paid under an earlier order of the Court). (¶¶ 11, 12, 13)
- Students who have completed their undergraduate medical course and internship cannot be left to an uncertain future without their original documents, which they need to pursue higher studies or practise medicine. Since the High Court, instead of disposing of the writ petitions expeditiously as the Court had earlier requested, merely admitted them and listed them months later, an equitable interim order was warranted. (¶ 14)
- On each petitioner depositing Rs 7.50 lakhs with the university and college over and above amounts already paid, and filing an undertaking to pay the balance if called upon at the final disposal of the writ petitions, the petitioners are entitled to return of their original admission documents. (¶ 15)
- The order is an interim arrangement only and expresses no opinion on the merits of the writ petitions pending before the High Court. (¶ 16)
Result
Special leave petition disposed of; the High Court's interim order modified so that the original documents are returned on deposit of Rs 7.50 lakhs per student and an undertaking to pay any balance found due; no opinion expressed on merits.