No fees refund for youth who switched colleges

Shibu Thomas TNN

Mumbai: Engineering student Amit Vaidya, who jumped ship when the college of his choice offered him a seat, later found out that it was a costly gamble. The Bombay high court recently dismissed his plea to order K C College (Thane), where he had initially taken admission, to refund Rs 92,000 as fees. 

 
    “The rules seek to balance the refund of tuition fees to students who obtain more preferential allotments with the rights of managements,” said a division bench of Justices Dhananjay Chandrachud and R D Dhanuka.
    Under the rules framed by the Directorate of Technical Education, refund of tuition is provided in certain eventualities. “The rules stipulate that no refund of fees, except for the security deposit, can be granted where a request for cancellation of admission is received before or after the start of the academic session and the seat cannot be filled by the institute,” added the judges. 

    Advocate Ashutosh Kumbhakoni, counsel for the college, said Vaidya cancelled his admission on the final cut-off date, due to which they could not admit another student for the vacant seat. “In the present case, as a result of the withdrawal by (Vaidya) from the seat allotted, the seat would remain vacant for a period of four years,” said the court, while refusing to order a refund. 

    Vaidya had sought admission in K C College and was allotted a seat in the third round of admissions on September 2, 2010. He paid tuition fees of Rs 85,800 and Rs 6,200 as stationery charges. On September 15, he sought cancellation of his admission as he had got into a college of his choice. 

 
    The college, which had no time to admit another student, refused to refund the fees. 

    Subsequently, during a hearing before the All-India Council for Technical Education, the college offered to refund 25% of the sum on humanitarian grounds. Vaidya, however, rejected the offer and moved the high court seeking afull refund. 

Source::::  The Times of India, 22-06-2012, p.07. 
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