The Supreme Court on Monday directed personal unaided faculties in Rajasthan to decrease the annual college charge by 15 % for the 2020-21 tutorial yr in lieu of unutilised services by the scholars as a result of Covid-19 pandemic.
A bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari mentioned the colleges might acquire the total annual charge, as mounted underneath the Rajasthan Schools (Regulation of Fee) Act, 2016, for the previous tutorial yr (2019-20), however for the 2020-21 tutorial yr, the colleges must decrease the charge by 15 per cent. The court docket additionally mentioned that the colleges are free to offer extra concessions to the scholars – past the 15 per cent deduction that has been directed.
The SC’s Monday order will influence round 36,000 personal unaided faculties, together with 220 minority personal unaided faculties, in addition to lakhs of scholars and their mother and father in Rajasthan.
The SC mentioned that as famous in its order dated February 8, 2021, “the amount so payable by the concerned students be paid in six equal monthly installments before August 5, 2021.”
However, the court docket has prohibited faculties “from debarring any student from attending either online classes or physical classes on account of non-payment of fees, arrears/outstanding fees including the instalments, referred to above…” and directed that faculties “shall not withhold the results of the examinations of any student on that account.”
The high court docket was listening to petitions by managements of personal faculties in Rajasthan which had approached the SC towards a Rajasthan High Court order issued on December 18, 2020.
In the order, now quashed by the SC, the HC had upheld the Rajasthan authorities’s October 2020 order directing personal faculties underneath the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education (RBSE) within the state to forego 30 per cent and 40 per cent tuition charge, respectively. The choice was taken by the state following representations made by a number of mother and father in regards to the difficulties encountered by them as a result of pandemic.