The Supreme Court of India.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: In a relief to 91 students, the Supreme Court has ordered a medical college in Uttarakhand to release their original documents withheld by the institute for non-payment of fee arrears.
A bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud took note of the submissions of senior lawyer Gaurav Agarwal and advocate Tanvi Dubey, appearing for the doctors, that the students will neither be able to register themselves as medical practitioner nor can take up examinations for higher studies for lack of original documents.
The bench, which also comprised justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, ordered Shri Guru Ram Rai Institute of Medical and Health Sciences College at Dehradun in Uttarakhand to release the documents on payment of Rs 7.5 lakh by students who have completed their MBBS course and the requisite internship.
The students will have to give an undertaking that they will be paying the remaining fee arrears, the top court said on Monday.
The medical college had earlier increased Rs 5 lakh annual fees to Rs 13.22 lakh for students who had got the admissions under the All-India quota.
The college had increased the annual fees of Rs 4 lakh per annum to Rs 9.78 lakh for those who had taken admissions under the state quota.
The fee hike was made applicable with retrospective effect.
The students, who completed their MBBS course and also did the one-year internship, had challenged the legality of the decision of the college asking them to pay "exorbitant arrears" to get their original documents.
"Without original documents, the doctors are forced to sit idle at home. They can neither participate in counselling of NEET-PG nor start their practice in a hospital," Dubey said.
The matter has been seeing a series of litigation for the past few years and a petition was also pending at the Nainital High Court against retrospective fee hike.
The students had challenged the order asking them to pay around Rs 38 lakh, the lawyer said.
The counsel for students argued that the decision was "arbitrary and forcefully imposed on them" for a course they have already completed.
"If they were aware earlier, they would have never chosen a college in Uttarakhand since they were getting colleges in their home states at a lesser fee," the lawyer said.
The high court had directed the students to pay the entire amount in nine instalments.
The college had issued a notice stating that internship cannot start unless payments are made.
Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for the college, said often it gets difficult for the colleges in such scenarios to keep track of the pending dues from students after documents are released.
Some of the students simply vanish and, in some cases, the cheques, given towards the arrears of the fees, have bounced.