Taking a serious view of the “pressure tactics” being adopted by engineering colleges to claim fee reimbursement arrears, the state government is drafting a report to be submitted to the Supreme Court on the irregularities committed by the managements of professional colleges, especially engineering colleges, to claim higher fees.

The government was forced to release Rs 1,200 crore arrears on Monday after managements had threatened to close the colleges indefinitely from Tuesday. Specially deputing chartered accountants have been thoroughly examining the financial statements of engineering colleges since 2008 for the purpose and the officials have found that there has been “abnormal increase” in the colleges’ expenditure over the years.

Authorities feel that the managements have “inflated” the accounts to claim higher fees and officials of the Higher Education department are on the job of collecting financial statements submitted by the engineering colleges to the Admissions and Fee Regulatory Committee (AFRC).

It has been found that a college, which had shown expenditures of Rs 3 crore in 2009 increased it to Rs 10 crore in 2010. Another engineering college, which showed an expenditure of Rs 5 crore in 2009 had increased it to Rs 15 crore citing increased salaries for the faculty as per the revised AICTE pay scales which showed only about a 50 per cent increase. Officials question the rationale behind the increase by 300 per cent.