Regulated fees could hit quality, autonomous colleges had told HC

Regulated fees could hit quality, autonomous colleges had told HC

Colleges’ grim, undecided on appeal

The Bombay high court has ruled that the Maharashtra Unaided Private Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Fees) Act, enacted in 2015, also applies to autonomous professional institutions.

In their petition challenging its applicability to their fee structure, a bunch of colleges had contended that if the law was applied to them, it would snatch their financial autonomy and affect academic excellence.

The high court rejected arguments that there was a conflict between the latest universities Act and the 2015 law. “If parameters as provided under the 2015 law are to be exercised by the autonomous colleges while determining their fees, they would have much more freedom to charge fees in proportion with the services rendered by them in their pursuit of academic excellence in contrast to the limited scope that they have under Statute 613 (of the Universities Act). The only role that the authority would play is to determine as to whether the fees so fixed by the unaided private professional educational institutions, like the petitioners, would amount to commercialization or profiteering or not,” said the bench.

The fee regulator, established under the 2015 Act, is headed by Justice M N Gilani, a retired Bombay high court judge. Last year, the FRA had said it had jurisdiction to regulate fees under the 2015 law and asked the autonomous colleges to submit their fee structure for the 2017-2018 academic year.

The colleges, including Somaiya, Welingkar and Sardar Patel, had approached the court challenging the decision. Senior advocate Aspi Chinoy, counsel for Somaiya, had contended that autonomy had been granted to them so that the colleges that have potential for offering programmes of higher standards have complete freedom in administrative, academic and financial matters. Senior advocate Shrihari Aney, appearing for the state, pointed out that in the new Universities Act enacted in 2016, “financial autonomy” had been taken away from the colleges; they were allowed only academic and administrative autonomy.

The high court said while the rules under the 1994 Universities Act provided that total fees should not exceed the cost of education per student, the 2015 law had broader parameters. The colleges could include factors like location, cost of land and building, infrastructure, facilities and even additional expenditure, incurred by them for achieving academic excellence, while fixing fees. Mumbai: Autonomous institutes said they will honour the Bombay high court judgment, but claimed that the Fee Regulating Authority (FRA)’s format of filling details subtly aims to fix the fees and not just regulate it.

The FRA uses software to decide the fee structure for colleges and courses based on their income and expenditure. The main objective is to ensure there is no profiteering and that colleges should have reasonable surplus.

An official from one of the autonomous colleges that had moved court said they had hoped for a ruling in their favour. “While the UGC wants us to excel in education and give us freedom in several aspects, the state government’s policies are holding us back. If they want us to give 7th Pay Commission prescribed salaries to teachers, make students industry-ready, focus on high-quality research, there should be some autonomy to decide the fees. All these need investments,” said the official. The institutes are undecided about an appeal.

Another official pointed out that though the HC said the FRA will only regulate the fees and the colleges can fix their own fee structure, the process is not conducive to colleges. “The software is designed in such a manner that it almost looks like the authority wants to fix the fees. We will honour the HC order. But it is not possible to provide a 360 degree approach in education if autonomy is curbed,” said the official.

Source | Times of India| 27th January 2018

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Rizvi Institute of Management