In an order which would provide relief to the private Ayurveda colleges but would contradict the orders of the Uttarakhand High Court (HC), the appellate authority on fees has allowed three private colleges to charge increased fees from the students.
The appellate authority in its meeting held on January 31 has allowed Qwadra Institute of Ayurved and Hospital, Roorkee, Haridwar to charge enhanced fee of Rs 2.15 Lakh per annum (p a) from the years 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18.
Similarly in another order it decided that the Doon Institute of Medical Sciences Sahaspur can charge fees of Rs 2.15 lakh per year for the year 2017-18. A similar order was passed for the Devbhoomi Medical College of Ayurveda and Hospital, Manduwala, Chakrata road, Dehradun.
Though the order of the appellate authority gave relief to the private colleges it contradicted the HC order which had quashed the government order (GO) on fee hike dated October 14, 2015 and directed the colleges to refund the excess fee charged by them to the students. The patron of Private Medical Universities Joint Forum of parents, Ravindra Jugran told The Pioneer that the order of HC is binding on all the parties and the order of the appellate authority allowing three colleges to charge increased fees retrospectively cannot be implemented.
He claimed that the private colleges are retorting to every trick to shuttle the order of HC and charge astronomical fees from the students retrospectively.
It is worth mentioning here that the students of the private Ayurveda colleges launched a massive agitation on demand of implementation of HC order on fee refund. On the assurance of the chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat the agitation was withdrawn on November 22 last year.
The Issue
The Uttarakhand government in the year 2015 had released a Government Order (GO) for increase in fees of the private Ayurveda Colleges of the state.
This GO was issue without necessary recommendation of the fee fixation committee and was implemented from back date in gross violation of all norms. On the orders of Supreme Court (SC), a fee fixation committee decides on the fee structure of private colleges.
On July 2018, the HC cancelled the GO and directed that the increased fee should be refunded within 15 days. The private colleges challenged this order but on October 9, 2018, a bench of HC upheld the earlier decision of single bench.
In pursuance of the HC order, the state government passed the orders for fee refund but the administrators of these colleges are not following the order.
Interestingly the state administration had issued three orders dated November 2, 2018, March 22, 2019 and April 23, 2019 asking the private colleges to refund the fee as per the orders of the HC but the private colleges continued their defiance. On September 23, 2019 the HC issued orders to 13 private colleges on a contempt petition.
