Education is not a Business!

The Supreme Court has upheld the Andhra Pradesh High Court's ruling to overturn the state government's proposal to raise the
tuition fee in medical institutions to Rs 24 lakh per year and stated that tuition fees should always be affordable and that education
is not a business for profit. The court's ruling in the P.A. Inamdar case, according to a bench of Justices M.R. Shah and
Sudhanshu Dhulia, would be violated if the fee were unilaterally increased. It was not justified at all to increase the charge to Rs
24 lakh per year, which is seven times the fee determined earlier.
The goal of education is not to make money. It stated in its ruling on Monday that the tuition rate would always remain
reasonable. The bench ruled that setting fees or reviewing fees should fall within the confines of the fixation rules and have
a direct bearing on the elements listed in Rule 4 of the Rules, 2006, such as the location of the professional institution, the
nature of the professional programme, the cost of the infrastructure that is available, the cost of administration and
maintenance, the amount of a reasonable surplus that is needed for the professional institution's expansion and
development, and so forth.
The court rejected an appeal brought by a medical institution and maintained the decision of the Andhra Pradesh High
Court that had invalidated the Government Order.
When the Narayana Medical College petitioned against the Andhra Pradesh High Court's ruling setting aside the
government's plan to increase the tuition cost for MBBS students, the Bench responded, “To boost the fee to Rs 24 lakh per
annum… is not acceptable at all.” (Para 5)
After reducing the charge paid in accordance with the earlier finding as per an order dated June 18, 2011, the top court
confirmed the High Court's directive to restore the remaining tuition fee money collected pursuant to a government order dated
September 6, 2017. The Bench argued that the High Court had behaved properly in issuing such instructions and that the money
that was recovered or collected as a result of the illegal government order could not be given to the college administration to
keep.
The bench stated that any decision of fee or review of fee must fall within the confines of the fixation rules and must
directly relate to the elements listed in Rule 4 of the Rules, 2006. Location, type of professional programme, cost of
infrastructure, administration and maintenance costs, reasonable surplus needed for institution's growth and development,
and revenue lost due to fee waivers, if any, for students in the reserved category and other economically disadvantaged
groups of society were all factors that needed to be considered, it said.
The Bench stated that the High Court was “clearly warranted” in quashing and setting aside the government order dated
September 6, 2017, noting that all these criteria were necessary for the AFRC to take into account while deciding or reviewing the
tuition rates.