College Demands Internship Fees From Students; Manipulates Attendance Registers : Madras High Court Imposes Rs 3 Crore Penalty

While hearing the matter Justice Krishnan Ramaswamy, strongly condemned the action of the respondent college. The court was satisfied that the respondent college had manipulated the attendance registers of the petitioners to get orders in their favour and directed the college to pay penalty.

In both the petitions, the petitioners argued that the respondent college which is a self-financing college affiliated to the Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University has been demanding illegal fee for internship as opposed to the usual norm of colleges paying stipend for internship.

The respondent college on the other hand submitted that the college never demanded fee towards internship from any student and what the petitioners were called upon to pay was the balance tuition fee that was due and payable by both of them. the respondent further argued that a mere completion of the course by the petitioners cannot be a ground for issuance of course completion certificate and that the same will be issued only upon remittance of arrears of tuition fee.

The counsel for the respondent college also placed on record the Attendance Registers maintained by the institution to argue that it was the petitioners who had failed to attend the internship programme regularly. It was argued that as per the Regulation of Tamil Nadu Dr.M.G.R.Medical University for break in internship training with regard to one year internship training programme, if a candidate has completed less than 50% of the internship postings and entered on break up for more than 90 days, the candidate has to re-do the entire internship training programme. In the present case, both the petitioners had to re-do the internship programme.

The court however, did not find any merits in the arguments of the respondents. The court found discrepancies in the markings made in the Attendance register produced by the respondent college in support of their arguments. The court also noticed that in many places the letter "P" has been overwritten so as to appear as "A" (ie. to mark absent). The court found that the College had altered the "P" into "A" and "A" into "P" in order to suit their convenience. It was noted that –

"The said act of the College is highly deprecated and punished suitably. In fact, in the entire Attendance Register, nowhere, in respect of other students, this kind of marking, i.e. 'Ab' has been made, but only in respect of the petitioner alone, it was made"

The court further pointed out that from the affidavits filed on behalf of the respondent, it was clear that they have been demanding excess fee towards alleged balance tuition fee inclusive of transportation charges from both the petitioners. When the petitioners resisted to pay this amount, the respondent college started giving them trouble by altering the attendance register despite them attending the Compulsory Rotatory Residential Internship (CRRI) training regularly.

The court also went on to observe the following:

"When the College went to the extreme level of altering the attendance of a poor student for the purpose of alleged non-payment of the fees, the College cannot be deemed as a good Educational Institution neither to impart education to the students, nor can yield good Doctors to the Society to serve for the wellbeing of the Nation. Imagine, when a student, who, on account of non payment of fee, owing to her financial crisis is subjected to undergo these types of mental agonies, then, there is no point in the College by boasting off stating that they are conducting the BDS Course and producing efficient BDS Doctors every year."

The court further relied on the decision of the Supreme Court in Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan University and Anr v. Union of India and Ors (2019 (1) SCALE 700) where the Apex Court, taking note of the fact that the College indulged in large scale malpractices in showing compliance of minimum required standards to obtain permission for admission of the students and also trying to mislead the Court in order to get permission for the admission of students, had imposed penalty of Rs.5 Crores for playing fraud on the Court apart from directing the College to refund the fee paid by the students for admission to the College and also directing to initiate prosecution against Dean of the College.

Based on the above, the High Court directed the college to pay a penalty of Rs. 3 crores to be paid to the University for indulging in manipulation. The court further directed the respondent college to pay a sum of Rs. 24 lakhs each to the petitioners for depriving their opportunity to become Dentists. It was also directed to refund the excess fee collected by the petitioners along with interest at the rate of 18% p.a. it was also directed to pay eligible stipend to the petitioners for their CRRI Training period of one year.

Further, the court ordered the college to issue Course Completion Certificates to the petitioners and to forward the details along with necessary certificates to the University so as to enable the University to issue Provisional/Degree Certificate to the Petitioners.

The court also directed the University to utilise the penalty amount of Rs. 3 crores for the purpose of providing scholarship to the poor students those who are undergoing BDS/MDS course under any existing Scheme. If no such Scheme exists, the University was directed to frame appropriate Schemes.

The court also suggested installing bio-metric attendance system for colleges as well as CRRI Training to avoid such manipulation in the future. Investigation was ordered against the affairs of the respondent college and to take appropriate action if necessary. The Dental Council of India was given powers to probe into any such similar incidents in the future.

Case title: SC Raja Rajeshwari v. The State of Tamil Nadu and Ors, Ms Ramya Priya v. Dental Council of India and Ors.

Case No: W.P No. 33407 of 2018 and W.P No. 11921 of 2018

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Mad) 115

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