The department of Higher Education has written a letter to the Vice-Chancellor of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), asking him to take appropriate action against its affiliate Bangalore Institute of Technology (BIT) in a 2015 case of collecting excess fee from a student.
The letter dated August 23 from the Principal Secretary (Higher Education) asks VTU to take action based on a report submitted to the government by the chairman of the Admission Overseeing Committee, which has the authority to recommend action against institutions which violate admission procedures.
The case is from the 2015 admission year when a student who had got admission through Common Entrance Test in BIT wanted to surrender her seat, but was forced to pay the entire course fee of Rs 68,580.
“The student got admission in a medical college. So, she wanted to give up her engineering seat. The college, however, refused to return her original documents till she paid the fee for the remaining three years,” a source in the committee said. As the student was surrendering after the last date, the college was not required to refund the amount paid for the first year. However, they were not entitled to collect fee for the remaining three years.
Out of desperation to retrieve the documents, the parents paid the amount demanded by the college. Later, they made a complaint with the committee. The then chairman issued a notice to the college, but the case was forgotten when his term ended.
Present chairman, retired judge Justice Anand Byrareddy took up the case again. “I issued a notice to the college, asking them to refund the fee with interest. There was no response from them. Later, they said the person delegated to respond had not done so. They tried to justify charging extra fee despite regulations against it,” he said.
Regulations of the University Grants Commission (UGC) say colleges are not allowed to withhold original documents of students or force them to pay the entire course fee.
Earlier this month, Justice Byrareddy submitted a report to the government, recommending that the college be asked to pay double the collected fee, along with an interest of 18% per annum.
The letter to VTU, a copy of which DH has obtained, asks the university to implement the recommendations of the committee. It has also asked for a report on the action taken, to be sent to the committee and the higher education department.