‘Self-financing colleges can revise fee mid-course’: HC
Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has upheld a mid-course revision of fee for students enrolled in a four-year B.Tech programme at a self-financing engineering college, holding that such enhancement is permissible when carried out under a binding state government notification and where the prospectus allows fee revision.
Dismissing writ petitions filed by a group of students of Dr. B.C. Roy Engineering College, Durgapur, Justice Partha Sarathi Chatterjee held that the revised fee demand enforced from the second semester of the 2023–24 academic year was neither arbitrary nor unlawful, as it followed a notification issued by the West Bengal Higher Education department revising the upper fee ceiling for self-financing engineering institutions.
The petitioners, admitted in 2023 through national and state-level entrance examinations, had initially questioned the legality of the government notification but later confined their challenge to its applicability to students already admitted. They argued that the fee structure could not be altered after admissions and registration were completed, particularly when students had relied on the disclosed fee while taking admission and availing education loans.
The court identified the core issue as whether the revised fee ceiling could be applied during the same academic year to students pursuing the course. It held that course fees are not an indivisible amount frozen for the entire duration of study but are structured and collected on a year-wise or semester-wise basis, subject to
ceilings fixed by the competent authority.
Placing reliance on the language of the state notification, the court noted that it expressly stated the revised fee structure would take effect from the date of issuance and apply from the academic year 2023–24.
While the notification referred to fees applicable to students “to be admitted”, the court held that, read as a whole, it was intended to operate with immediate effect during the ongoing academic year.
