The Andhra Pradesh High Court recently disposed of the petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Government Order of May, 2020.
The order had fixed the fee for post-graduate medical courses for 2020-21 to 2022-23, sparking controversy among private unaided medical colleges.
At the heart of the dispute was the Andhra Pradesh Higher Education Regulatory and Monitoring Commission’s (APHERMC) decision to fix a uniform fee structure for all institutions, without considering the individual proposals submitted by each college.
The petitioners, comprising private unaided medical colleges, argued that this approach was arbitrary and violated the provisions of the Act, the Rules, and the Regulations framed under the Act.
The bench of Chief Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur and Justice R Raghunandan Rao carefully examined the provisions of the Act, the Rules, and the Regulations.
The court observed that the Commission had indeed erred in fixing a uniform fee structure, without considering the individual proposals submitted by each college.
The court held that the Commission should have examined the proposed fee structures individually in all cases and passed orders thereupon.
The court emphasized that the Commission’s failure to do so had resulted in a violation of the provisions of the Act, the Rules, and the Regulations.
In its judgment, the court set aside the Government Order No 56, dated May 29, 2020, and directed the Commission to undertake the exercise of fee fixation within a period of two months.
The court also held that the Commission should give an opportunity to the concerned institution to seek its view on the proposed fee structure before passing final orders.
The post Andhra Pradesh High Court sets aside uniform fee order for private unaided medical colleges appeared first on India Legal.