'Universities Cannot Withhold Student's Original Documents To Recover Future Fees': Rajasthan High Court

The Rajasthan High Court granted relief to a former MBBS student, whose original documents were detained by the university which she required to appear in her examinations in the new college, and held that documents deposited by a student at the time of admission could not be retained as a tool to compel her to deposit the fee for remaining years.The bench of Justice Anuroop Singhi was hearing a petition wherein the petitioner prayed for directions to university for release of her original documents that were submitted by her while taking admission in MBBS course in 2022. The petitioner attended the course in her 1st and 2nd year, and also submitted fee for her 3rd year. However, subsequently, owing to her health conditions, she had to withdraw from the course, and take admission in some other university, changing her stream completely.For giving exams in the new university, she required to mandatorily submit her original documents, which her former university was not releasing. Hence, the petition was filed. It was the case of the respondent-university that it had to be considered that if a student left the course midstream, for remaining years, the seat would lie vacant and the institute would suffer. If such practice of handing back the documents was permitted, same would leave the college high and dry, requiring the college to run after every student for recovery of the arrears. After hearing the contentions, the Court rejected the argument put forth on behalf of the university, and held that imposing such a condition of retaining original document, would defeat the very object of furnishing original documents by a student during admission which was to ascertain and verify the documents and student's eligibility.The Court also made a reference to the information booklet of the counselling board, and highlighted that, “conditions read in the information booklet solely revolves around the process to be adopted by the student as well as the institution at the time of granting admission but nowhere empowers university to continue with the custody of the documents if the student is willing to leave the same”.It was further held that even the affidavit executed by the student or her parents failed to give any unfettered right to the university to keep the documents to prejudice and hamper the further career growth of a student. In this background, the Court held that there was no occasion to not release the documents of the petitioner solely to be used as a measure to recover the balance fees for remaining two years. Accordingly, the university was directed to release the documents latest by the following day, and the matter was listed for further hearing on January 22, 2026. Title: Eshita Gupta v Jaipur National University & Anr. Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Raj) 407Click Here To Read/Download Order

'Universities Cannot Withhold Student's Original Documents To Recover Future Fees': Rajasthan High Court

Nupur Agrawal

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