Fee apathy curse for parents: HC

AFRC delays fee structure proposals

The Hyderabad High Court on Friday pulled up the state Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee (AFRC) for the delay in recommending the fee structure for each year for the engineering course. The court said the apathy of the authorities had become a curse on parents.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Thottathil Bhaskaran Nair Radhakrishnan and Justice Ramesh Ranganathan was reserving orders on two appeals by the fee committee and the state government. The judges asked officials why they were allowing colleges to hike the fee without recommending the fee structure as per schedule.

The bench asked whether the AFRC had any regulations and time schedule to recommend the fee structure every year.

Finding fault with the decisions and proceedings of the AFRC meetings, the bench said that it appeared that the committee was leaving its job to the court.

The AFRC and state government had challenged the orders passed by a single judge allowing Vasavi Institute of Technology and Sreenidhi Institute of Science and Technology to collect `1.60 lakh and `1.37 lakh per student for the academic years 2016-17, 2017-18 and 201819 respectively.

The single judge had found fault with the recommendation of the AFRC to collect `97,000 as fee from each student. Dealing with the appeals, the bench asked why the officials did not have the signatures of all members on the minutes of the committee meeting; instead, it had a consultant signing on the report forward to Vasavi College.

Asking for the reason for getting the consultant to sign on the report, the bench made it clear that committee chairman alone had no power to take decisions on the fee structure and it should be a collective decision of the committee.

While observing that the delay of the fee commission was resulting in penalisation of the parents, the bench reserved its orders.