The court established that interim relief can be granted to students in fee disputes to prevent undue hardship while the matter is under judicial consideration.

ORDER :

1. The dispute in the present case relates to the fixation of the fee for the undergraduate medical degree course offered by a college in the State of Uttarakhand. The petitioners are students who were granted admission in 2018 to the undergraduate medical degree course administered by the third respondent-Shri Guru Ram Rai Institute of Medical and Health Sciences College. The students completed the course in 2023. The second respondent is the Shri Guru Ram Rai University, a university governed by an Act of the state legislature¹ [Shri Guru Ram Rai University Act 2016, Uttarakhand Act No. 03 of 2017] of which the third respondent is a constituent college.

2. The state legislature enacted the Uttarakhand Unaided Private Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Fixation of Fee) Act in 2006. The Act applies to “unaided private professional educational institutions in the state which are affiliated to state-funded universities, councils, boards or other bodies established under law, excluding minority institutions.”² [S.2, Uttarakhand Unaided Private Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission & Fixation of Fee) Act] The Act establishes an ‘Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee’ which inter alia determines the fees for admission to professional courses of private institutions.³ [S.4, Ibid] The Act also provides for the constitution of an appellate authority to hear appeals against the orders of the Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee.⁴ [S.12, Ibid]

3. On 4 April 2018, a nodal agency appointed by the State Government prescribed the fee structure for the undergraduate medical courses of seven medical colleges, including the third respondent. The fee structure as posted by the nodal agency on their website (Annexure P-2) prescribed a fee of rupees four lakhs for State quota seats and rupees five lakhs for the All India quota seats.

4. These fees and allied issues were the subject matter of writ petitions filed by the second and third respondents before the Uttarakhand High Court.⁵ [WPMS No. 933/2018; WPMS No. 1789/2018] The High Court, by an interim order directed that admissions may be carried out and the fee collected will be subject to the final outcome of the Writ petition.

5. In March 2019, the Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee fixed the fees for the academic years 2019-2020, 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 at Rs. 13.22 lakhs per annum for the All India quota and Rs. 9.78 lakhs per annum for the State quota. The principal of the third-respondent college preferred an appeal before the appellate authority contending inter alia that the committee had erred by failing to fix the same fee for the academic year 2018-19 for the undergraduate medical degree course. By an Order dated 25 February 2023, the appellate authority affirmed the fee structure and further directed that the same fees also be charged for the academic year 2018-2019.

6. Letters were addressed by the college principal on 1 March 2023 asking all the petitioners to pay outstanding fees of Rs. 36.99 lakhs for the All India quota students and Rs. 26.01 lakhs for the State quota students, in accordance with the revised fees fixed by the committee and affirmed by the appellate authority.

7. The petitioners instituted Writ Petitions before the High Court challenging the order of the appellate authority, the letter dated 1 March 2023 and seeking a direction to the respondents to issue undergraduate degrees to the petitioners without insistence on any extra payment of tuition fee.⁶ [WPMS No. 755/2023] On 22 March 2023, the High Court rejected the prayer to stay the order of the appellate authority and directed the petitioners to deposit the fees in three equal installments. By a subsequent interim order dated 3 April 2023, the High Court directed the petitioners to deposit the amount in nine equal installments instead of three installments. The order also records the statement of the counsel, that on the payment of the first inst