The corpus fund is considered part of the tuition fee for NRI students, making its payment mandatory.

JUDGMENT

The writ petitioners seek for a direction to refund the amount collected from them towards the Corpus Fund.

2. Petitioners were MBBS students of the 4^th respondent college.

They had obtained admission under the NRI quota. While fixing the fee for NRI quota, petitioners allege that the Admission Supervisory Committee fixed the fee as Rs.20 lakhs of which Rs.5 lakhs was to be paid as Corpus Fund. Petitioners contended that the amount payable towards the Corpus Fund cannot be regarded as fee payable by them, and as per the judgment of the Supreme Court, they were not liable to pay any amount to such a Corpus Fund. Despite the above, they have paid Rs.5 lakhs towards corpus fund and hence those amounts are liable to be refunded.

3. I have heard the learned counsel for the petitioners and the learned counsel for the respondents.

4. In Govind Krishnan v. State of Kerala [2026 KHC Online

194] a learned Single Judge of this Court had considered an identical issue and came to the conclusion that Corpus Fund is part of the tuition fee. It was observed that “the students appear to be under the mistaken assumption that the fee was only Rs.15 lakhs and that an additional amount of Rs.5 lakhs was being collected as a Corpus Fund.” The Court also came to the conclusion that the Fee Committee had approved the fee for NRI students at Rs.20 lakhs and Rs.5 lakhs was directed to be diverted as Corpus Fund. The Court however observed that the Fee Committee had no such power to direct diversion of a portion of the fee prescribed.

5. Thus the Court categorically declared that the fee fixed was Rs.20 lakhs, and the students were liable to pay that amount. After observing as above, petitioners therein (students) were granted six weeks’ time to satisfy the arrears and also directed that, if payment is not made within the time provided, steps for encashing the bank guarantees can be initiated after the expiry of six weeks.

6. The aforesaid conclusions in Govind Krishnan's case (supra)

are binding upon by this Court. Since it has already been held that the fee payable to the Corpus Fund is actually part of the tuition fee itself, the claim of the petitioners in the present case cannot be sustained.

In view of the above, this writ petition is dismissed.