Supreme Court: Tuition fee must be affordable, education not a business

The Supreme Court on Monday observed that education is not the business to earn profit and tuition fees shall always be affordable as it noted that the Andhra Pradesh Government's decision to enhance fee to Rs 24 lakhs per annum, which is seven times more than the fee fixed earlier is not justifiable at all.

A bench of justices MR Shah and Sudhanshu Dhulia on Monday made these remarks while upholding Andhra Pradesh High Court's order which set aside the State Government's decision to enhance the tuition fee payable by the MBBS students.

Andhra Pradesh government by its Government Order dated September 6, 2017, enhanced the tuition fee payable by MBBS students.

The court observed that the determination of fee/review of the fee shall be within the parameters of the fixation rules and shall have direct nexus on the factors mentioned in Rule 4 of the Rules, 2006, which include the location of the professional institution; the nature of the professional course; the cost of available infrastructure; the expenditure on administration and maintenance; a reasonable surplus required for growth and development of the professional Institution; the revenue foregone on account of waiver of fee, if any, in respect of students belonging to the reserved category and other Economically Weaker Sections of the society.

The court noted that these factors are required to be considered by the Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee (AFRC) while determining/reviewing the tuition fees.

The court also opined that Andhra Pradesh High Court has not committed any error in issuing directions to refund the amount of tuition fee collected under the Government Order dated September 6, 2017.