Hyderabad: Pointing out the state government in making the Telangana Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee as non-functional without appointing the chairman, a division bench of the Telangana High Court on Wednesday upheld the single Judge order, which permitted some of the Engineering colleges to collect the fees proposed by the said colleges in the proposals sent to the Fee Regulatory Committee.
The division bench comprising Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice Shameem Akther was dealing with the petition by the state government challenging the single Judge order, which allowed the Engineering colleges SreeNidhi, Vardhaman, Teja, Gokaraju Rangaraju, Geetanjali, Keshav Memorial and other colleges to collect the fees as per their proposals for the block period of 2019-20 to 2021-22.
The single Judge gave these orders on the condition of the excess amount collected, shall be refunded to the respective students with proper acknowledgment, if the AFRC fixes lesser than the proposals sent by the said colleges.
As no chairman was appointed to the AFRC till the last moment of conducting the admission counseling, the colleges were permitted to collect the fees as their proposals and the colleges had given undertaking that they will refund the excess fees if their fees were fixed for a lesser amount.
While the arguments, the CJ Chauhan opined that the bench had seen nothing wrong in the single judge order and observed that the AFRC should not be the toothless tiger without appointing the chairman. The bench queried about the appointment of the chairman and authority given to the AFRC. The Additional Advocate General J. Ramachandra Rao replied that chairman was appointed on 26 June and he submitted that if the colleges were allowed to collect the fees as per their choice that it would become the capitation fees.
The Counsel for the colleges said that the single judge in his order clearly said that he was allowing the private colleges to revise their fee figures as the state and its AFRC have not notified the revised figures. The single judge also said that the revised figures could be modified later in tune with the decision of the AFRC.
