HC allows 3 SFCs to collect higher fees

KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Wednesday granted provisional permission to the managements of three self-financing engineering colleges to exact higher fee.The permission was granted to the managements of Rajagiri College of Engineering, Kakkanad, Marian College, Kazhakootam and Jyothi Engineering College, Thrissur, which are members of the Kerala Catholic Engineering College Managements Association. The court granted permission to exact Rs 75,000 as fee and Rs 1 Lakh as interest-free deposit,the same as last year.Justice P R Ramachandra Menon passed the order on the petitions filed by the college managements challenging the fee structure fixed by Justice P A Mohammed Committee.As per the fee structure fixed by the committee, the tuition fee, interest-free deposit and caution deposit should be Rs 40,000, Rs 75,000 and Rs 10,000 respectively. The fee structure will be valid for three years with retrospective effect from 2010-11 to 2012-13.The managements contended that the fee fixed by the committee is insufficient. They further alleged that the committee had no authority to fix the fee and it constituted noncompliance of a previous order by the Division Bench."The mandate of the committee is to supervise whether the colleges are making profit and exacting capitation fee. However, the request by the college managements to revise the fee was not considered by the committee," the petitioners submitted.The petitioners have not signed the agreement with the government in matters such as seatsharing and fee. However, the court made it clear that the permission is only provisional. "It should be refunded later, if found to be in excess. The committee can take a decision according to the law on the basis of the managements' request," court said.