Education/Educational Institutions – Medical admission – Undergraduate medical degree course – Fixation of fee – Students granted admission in 2018 to the medical UG course and completed the same in 2023 – At the time of admission, fee was Rs five lakhs p.a. for the All India quota seats and Rs four lakhs p.a. for the State quota seats subject to the final decision in the writ petitions pending before the High Court – In 2019, the fees revised for the academic years 20192022 at Rs 13.22 lakhs p.a. for the All India quota and Rs 9.78 lakhs p.a. for the State quota which was later charged for the academic year 2018-19 also – Writ petitions by the students seeking direction to the respondents to issue undergraduate degrees to them without insistence on any extra payment of tuition fee – High Court directed the students to deposit the fees in installments, and in the subsequent interim order directed that on the payment of the first installment, provisional certificate for completion of the course would be issued, and the students would be permitted to begin their internships – Challenge to, whereby, this Court permitted the students to continue the internship programme subject to deposit of two installments and the High Court to dispose of the pending writ petition expeditiously – Thereafter, the High Court admitted the writ petitions and posted the matter for March 2025, directing that subject to the deposit of the fee, original documents submitted by students to the university would be returned:
Held: Order of this Court sought to remove such an imbroglio by issuing a direction for the deposit of two installments of fees and requested the High Court to dispose of the petition – Instead of doing so, the High Court simply admitted the petition and posted it to March 2025 – No early resolution of the dispute seems likely – Students cannot be left in the lurch to an uncertain future – Students have paid approximately Rs 34 lakhs per student for the All-India quota seats and Rs 28 lakhs per student for the State quota seats, inclusive of the security deposit and remaining installments – In view thereof, students to be returned their original documents, to pursue their postgraduate studies and practice medicine, on the deposit of Rs 7.50 lakhs each over and above the amounts already deposited – Students to file an undertaking to pay the balance amount on the final disposal of the pending writ petitions – Interim order of the High Court modified in the said terms. [Paras 12-16]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Nidhi Jain. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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