Kochi: There was nothing wrong in private colleges collecting an additional fee for application forms, the Muvattuluzha Vigilance judge has held.
The court also discharged former Principal and Office Superintendent of Cochin College.
The Inquiry Commissioner and Special Judge P Madhavan held that there was absolutely no material to support offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The prosecution case was that Narayanan Kutty, the then principal of the college and Suresh Pai, the Senior Superintendent of the Cochin College, abused their official position as public servants and had illegally collected Rs 20 excess for application fee from 1235 applicants during the academic year 2002-03 instead of Rs 30 and misappropriated an amount of Rs 24,700.
According to the two Cochin College, being a private management college it was entitled to collect Rs 50 as application fee as per a government order. They also produced the Government order.
As per the order, private college managers are allowed to charge an amount not exceeding Rs 20 towards the cost of application over and above the registration fee, So managements can collect upto Rs 50 as application fee.
Joint Registrar Administration of the MG University meanwhile submitted that the application fee obtained by the college was not under the control of the university and the amount was fixed by the government higher secondary department and collected by the management.
