JUDGMENT :

A.K. JAYASANKARAN NAMBIAR, J.

1. These writ petitions raise a very pertinent question as regards the propriety of the demand of annual fees from medical students under circumstances where the fee demanded pertains to an academic year different from the academic year in respect of which instructions are being imparted to the students.

2. The petitioners in these writ petitions are students who were admitted to the 2019-2020 batch of the MBBS Course offered by various private medical colleges in the State. The fee that can be collected by the said medical colleges, from the students admitted thereto, has been fixed by the Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee constituted in the State of Kerala in terms of the Kerala Medical Education (Regulation and Control of Admission to Private Medical Educational Institutions) Act, 2017 [hereinafter referred to as the “2017 Act”]. As per the provisions of the 2017 Act, the committee is expected to determine the fee that can be collected by the private medical educational institutions from the students in the year in which they are ad