Self-financing courses: GO on fee panel challenged

CHENNAI: Two petitions have been filed in the Madras High Court, both challenging a GO, dated August 31, 2018, of the Higher Education secretary, which constituted a panel to fix fee for self-financing courses in arts and science colleges in the State.

Justice T Raja, before whom the petitions from the Madurai-Kamaraj University Private Colleges Management Association in Madurai, by its president R Lakshmipathy, and the Association of Management of Private Colleges in Chennai, by its chief Abakumar, came up on Tuesday, ordered notice to authorities concerned, returnable by January 31.

G Sankaran, counsel for the petitioners, submitted that the constitution of the panel was ex facie arbitrary, illegal and liable to be quashed inasmuch as the August 31 GO does not contemplate any norms or procedure or specific parameters for fixing fee structure by the panel.

It is vague and incomplete, giving room for arbitrary exercise of power leading to discrimination and thereby violating Article 14 of Constitution. There cannot be any GO for constitution of the panel without prescribing norms and procedure for the colleges to forward the proposed fee structure and specific parameters for the committee to approve or fix the fee structure for the degree and PG courses.

In the absence of codified procedure, the impugned GO suffers from serious infirmity as it is vague and incomplete and it cannot be acted upon in the manner known to law and accordingly it is liable to be set aside, Sankaran contended.