CHANDIGARH – Putting to rest the controversy over admission of foreign Indian students to Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today upheld fixation of the fee for NRI candidates.
The development is significant as a bunch of five petitions were filed by Sukhmani Kaur Brar and other petitioners alleging that “NRI candidates have been charged an unrealistic high fee”
Their contention was that the high fee was a ruse to discourage the genuine NRI candidates so that the seats could be shifted to the special management quota. The petitioners had contended that the fee for NRI students in terms of notification dated January 21, 2011, was sought to be raised from $55,000 to $1, 25,000 for the full course. The petitioners added the move would result in a jump from approximately Rs 33 lakh to Rs 75 lakh after taking into account the prevalent exchange rate.
Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Arun Palli asserted: “It has been averred that there is no special management quota seats in the notification for 2013 and no such admissions have been made since the year 2011.
“The leftover NRI seats are transferred to the management quota and the relevant fee of the management quota is charged. Thus, the plea that this mode is being used as a form of capitation fee does not hold good
“It is not as if a free hand has been given to the private institutions to fix their fee as they please but a committee has been appointed, which would scrutinise the requirement of revision of fee based on certain well established parameters so that such profiteering is avoided.
