Accepting fees with form implies admission: Forum

Delhi State Consumer Commission has held that colleges cannot ask for demand draft of entire fee amount along with the application without giving any guarantee of admission to an applicant, reports Harish V Nair.

In a significant ruling coinciding with the admission season, the Delhi State Consumer Commission has held that colleges cannot ask for demand draft of entire fee amount along with the application without giving any guarantee of admission to an applicant.

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Colleges have been asked to charge only a nominal registration fee at the initial stage.

Commission president Justice J. D. Kapoor said it was observed that in some cases colleges keep the decision in abeyance till the time the admission process in other colleges is over thereby ruining ones career prospects.

The forum gave the ruling while slapping a fine of Rs 50,000 on Galgotia’s College of Engineering and Technology for denying admission to Kajal Rawat, a resident of Patparganj after accepting fees resulting in her losing a year.

The college had asked Rawat to enclose a draft of Rs 65,000 towards fees along with the application form in August, 2002. They kept the decision pending and by the time they informed her of inability to enroll her in general quota, admissions in all other colleges had closed. The college gave her an option of seeking admission under NRI quota by paying Rs 2 lakh more. Rawat refused the offer.

Justice Kapoor said: “It appears that such a mechanism has been evolved by the institutes in order to see that the applicants do not go on applying in various colleges and are forced to take admission in their colleges by shelling extra amount as already demanded in this case”.

“This is a highly unfair and unethical practice. Once a person deposits a requisite fees, the admission is not only presumed but has to be assured also as otherwise mere application on the nominal registration fees is sufficient to decide the eligibility of a candidate for admission for a particular course,” the commission said.

The college contended that since Rawat had not filed any documents it cannot be held that she had got admission in the college. “It is immaterial whether the college had encashed the draft. What is material is that the applicant had taken out such a big amount to prepare a DD,” the commission held.