Chennai: The District Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum, Chennai (South) directed a private engineering college to refund Rs 1.65 lakh to a girl student, who discontinued the MCA course three days after admission in 2015.
In the petition, G.K.V. Sankar Narayanan of Nemili near Vellore submitted that his daughter was admitted in MCA course under the lateral entry in SSN College of Engineering, Kalavakkam, Chennai. He paid Rs 36,000 towards tuition fees and Rs 1.54 lakh for facilities including transport, books, identity card and digital library fees on August 3, 2015.
She joined the college hostel on August 10, 2015 and left the institution in three days. She vacated the hostel after she developed home-sickness. Immediately, he approached the institution to return her certificates. After returning the certificates, the staff also assured him that the fees would be refunded. As they failed to respond, he sent notice to the institution on November 7, 2015, seeking a refund of Rs 1.90 lakh paid by him.
In the petition he sought direction to the principal and President, SSN Trust, Mylapore to pay a compensation of Rs 1.25 lakh for causing them mental agony.
In its reply, the college management stated that the educational institution was not providing any kind of service. And, education was not a commodity.
Therefore, only when institution refuses to impart education to the student it would be termed as deficiency of service. The girl student left the course for her personal reasons and hence the institution had not committed any deficiency in service. The petition is liable to be dismissed, the management said.
The bench comprising President B. Ramalingam, members K. Amala and
T. Paul Rajasekaran directed the management to refund Rs 1.65 lakh to the petitioner.
