PG Medical Students can join in after paying half amount of new fee, rules HC

On Wednesday, the Telangana High Court passed an order allowing selected students to join their respective post-graduate medical courses by paying half the enhanced fee.

The bench of Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice Shameem Akther, which took over the hearing, described the hike in convenor quota seats as a steep one.

The hike order passed by the Telangana Admission and Fee Regulation Committee (TAFRC) had resulted in an eruption of controversy before a previous bench.

The present bench, however, also went to say that it was allowing the hike in view of the difficulties faced by managements of private medical colleges and to balance the interests of both, colleges and students.

The students will lose their seats if they do not join their new course following the payment of fee by May 25. They will also not be allowed to participate in the second phase of counselling.

It can be recalled that the previous bench had sought the production of material considered by the fee regulation committee that had recommended the hike in fee. This had resulted in a controversy following the casting of aspersions by the committee’s chairman over one of the judges on the previous bench.

The bench finally recused itself from the hearing the case following which the Chief Justice took over the case. Counsel for the aggrieved students, Sama Sandeep Reddy, pointed out to the court that the fee committee had not produced the material even now

The CJ agreed that it was difficult for him to decide on the matter without studying the material which had become the basis for the committee to effect the fee hike. When a battery of senior lawyers argued for private medical colleges and said that they are paying hefty fees for professors and even stipends to students, the CJ wondered whether that would justify a hike of (up to) 550%.

However, the CJ said that he will verify the authenticity of the hike in the final hearing and allowed colleges to collect up to 50% enhanced fee from convenor quota or Category-A students in addition to the existing fee as per GO number 29 issued in May 2016.

For the remaining fee, students have to execute a bond. For Category-B, students have to pay 60% of enhanced fee while Category-C has to pay three times the fee prescribed for Category-B.

The High Court also accorded no relief for Category-C which also includes NRIs among others. Institution quota, which also falls under Category-C, was left untouched by the high court.

The HC directed state, TAFRC and private medical colleges to file their counters within four weeks. It also directed the registry to tag the current PIL, two related PILs pending with the court since 2017 and posted the case to the third week of June.

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