The court ruled that the Fee Committee lacks authority to collect fees for a Corpus Fund without legislative backing, affirming that all prescribed tuition fees must be paid by students.

JUDGMENT :

HARISANKAR V. MENON, J.

[WP(C) Nos.38556/2023, 30073/2025, 30446/2025, 30528/2025, 30536/2025, 30943/2025, 30948/2025, 32002/2025, 32069/2025, 32123/2025, 32257/2025, 32496/2025, 32519/2025, 32780/2025, 33009/2025, 33097/2025, 33100/2025, 33200/2025, 33472/2025, 33553/2025, 33619/2025, 34335/2025, 34343/2025, 34571/2025, 34587/2025, 34726/2025, 35307/2025, 35365/2025, 35512/2025, 35671/2025, 35754/2025, 35917/2025, 36128/2025, 36171/2025, 36200/2025, 36493/2025, 36503/2025, 36805/2025, 36992/2025, 37064/2025, 37325/2025, 37452/2025, 37664/2025, 37730/2025, 38491/2025, 38602/2025, 38672/2025, 39589/2025, 39635/2025, 39871/2025, 39909/2025, 40173/2025, 40399/2025, 40635/2025, 44080/2025, 44160/2025, 44501/2025, 45134/2025, 46013/2025, 46104/2025, 46772/2025, 46955/2025, 47010/2025, 47536/2025]

1. Medical education and the fees payable by students have been on the dissection table before this Court on many occasions. The present batch of writ petitions is also one such instance where the students contend that the fee prescribed require to be “dissected” and the alleged collection of Rs.5,00,000/- by the medical colleges for admissions under the Non-Resident Indian (NRI) quota be declared illegal, in view of the earlier declaration of law by the Division Bench of this Court as confirmed by the Apex Court.

2. The petitioners in these cases contend that the fee payable for admission and later studies in the NRI quota in the Self-Financing Medical Colleges was only Rs.15,00,000/- as fixed by the Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee for Medical Education in Kerala (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Fee Committee’) constituted under the Kerala Medical Education (Regulation and Control of Admission to Private Medical Educational Institutions) Act, 2017 (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Act 2017’) and that the Fee Committee determined the fee payable for the academic year 2017 onwards arbitrarily at an exorbitant figure, out of which an amount of Rs.5 lakhs was set apart Towards the “Corpus Fund” so as to finance the education of the students in the BPL category. They point out that the fixation as above has been challenged before this Court and in the judgment reported as Director, Jubilee Mission Medical College and Research Institute v. State of Kerala and Others , 2020 (3) KLT 615 , a Division Bench of this Court found that the Fee Committee has no power to direct payment of a portion of the amount to be collected from the students for any other purpose under the Act, 2017. The fixation was also found to be illegal for various other reasons, directing the Fee Committee to reconsider the matter afresh in the light of the directions contained therein. They state that, while the matter was pending consideration before the Committee, the Government issued G.O.(MS) No. 107/2018/H&FWD dated 06.06.2018, framing a scholarship scheme to provide financial assistance to BPL students from the tuition fee fixed by the Fee Committee. Annexure A, forming part of the Government Order issued as above, provides for the composition of a Corpus Fund of Rs.5,00,000/- each from the NRI seat out of the fee to be fixed by the Fee Committee. The afore Government Order was, in turn, challenged by filing W.P.(C) No.33160 of 2018 and connected cases before this Court. A Division Bench of this Court, by judgment dated 23.07.2023, noticing the earlier judgment in Director, Jubilee Mission Medical College and Research Institute (supra), found that neither the Committee nor the Government had any authority to levy an amount, to be credited to a Corpus Fund, “in the absence of conferment of such authority by the legis