New Delhi: A medical college in Uttarakhand was directed by the Supreme Court to release the documents of students, which the institute has withheld because of the fee arrears non-payment by the students.
A bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra on Monday issued this direction when it was dealing with a petition filed by 91 students.
In the plea, 91 students challenged the August 6, 2024, order by the High Court of Uttarakhand at Nainital.
The petitioner said, "High Court in sheer disregard to the principles of natural justice and earlier orders of this Court directed the matter to be listed in March 2025, when this Court (Supreme Court) vide order dated April 28, 2023, directed the High Court to decide the matter within three months which was supposed to be done by July 28, 2023."
The petitioners were represented by senior advocate Gaurav Agarwal and advocate Tanvi Dubey. The lawyers have submitted that students will need original documents for higher studies and medical practice.
The top court directed the Dehradun's Guru Ram Rai Institute of Medical and Health Sciences College to release the documents to students who have completed their MBBS course and the requisite internship on condition that they will make payment of some amount and on an undertaking that they will pay the remaining fee arrears later.
The matter relates to a fee hike by the college. The petitioner said that the High Court's decision to adjourn the matter to March 2025, will make their petition infructuous if the students are made to deposit the payment of exorbitant fees of Rs. 28,77,000 for the All India Quota and Rs. 20,23,000 for State Quota for the release of their original documents.
"The HC direction is totally unfounded and severely affects the students," the petition said.
It further added that payment of exorbitant amounts will be totally impossible for the students as they will be heavily burdened with huge education loans since they already paid around Rs. 44,04,867 as academic fees and Rs. 8,22,000 as installments. "Further an amount of Rs. 3,00,000 which was the security deposit amount is still with the college," the students said.
"The Petitioners have a strong case on merits and the very basis of challenge in the writ petition will be infructuous if they are made to pay an exorbitant amount in order to receive their original document," the court said.
"The High Court while passing the impugned order completely overlooked the hardship that will be faced by the students since the conduct of the college in claiming the fee with retrospective effect is highly arbitrary for the students since when the exorbitant arrears were claimed i.e., in the year 2023, the students were already done with 4.5 years of their medical course and only their internships were remaining and the petitioners in no extreme condition had foreseen the fact that there will be a hike of 175 per cent in the tuition fees which they will have to pay," the plea said.
The petition further highlighted that many students will appear for various competitive examinations including the NEET-PG 2024 examination and the stipulation for admission is submission of original documents.
"The results of NEET-PG will be out any time soon and therefore will be totally impossible for the students to arrange the entire amount at such short notice," the petitioner said.
"If the students are forced to pay the exorbitant amount for the release of documents the entire dispute on merits will be infructuous and the merits of the dispute and very basis of challenge for the payment of this exorbitant sum will get diluted," the petition said.
Supreme Court asks medical college to release original documents of students
