Chandigarh, July 26: While taking up the public interest litigation on the issue of high fees being charged for the MBBS course by private medical colleges, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday issued a notice to the Punjab Government, Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, Faridkot, and three private medical colleges.
The PIL was filed on the basis of a report that featured in The Tribune on July 7.
The report had highlighted that the state government had ignored its own Act and a Supreme Court judgment which had helped private medical colleges in virtually selling MBBS seats.
The colleges had started charging Rs 50-70 lakh for the MBBS course.
Taking up the PIL, the Division Bench of Justice Ajay Kumar Mittal and Justice Avneesh Jhinghan issued a notice to the Chief Secretary, Punjab, Principal Secretary, Department of Medical Education and Research; Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, Faridkot; and private medical colleges, including Adesh University, Bathinda; Sri Guru ram Das Medical College, Amritsar; and CMC, Ludhiana. The PIL was filed by Dr Sandeep Kumar Gupta, a Hisar-based veterinary scientist.
Referring to The Tribune story, the petitioner had pointed out that being a welfare state, it was the primary duty of the state government to regulate the fee structure in private colleges but the State of Punjab had given full autonomy to private colleges to fix their own fee structure and there was no difference of fee structure in state quota seats and management quota seats. This forced all candidates to pay a huge amount to secure admission in private medical colleges for the MBBS course.
The charging of fee excessively higher than that fixed by the state government amounts to the violation of the direction of Supreme Court issued in the Islamic Academy of Education and others vs State of Karnataka case wherein it has been held that no institution can charge an amount higher than that fixed by the state government. The next date of hearing is August 28.
The Tribune had reported that to favour private colleges for fixing their own fee and virtually auction MBBS seats, the government had ignored a dissent note by the Principal Secretary, Medical Education, who was later transferred from the department.
Source Tribune India
