HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Wednesday struck down GOs 41 and 43 issued by Telangana state health and family welfare department dated 09-5-2017 fixing fee for students admitted into the professional postgraduate and dental courses and Telangana state minorities dental professional institutions for the academic years 2017 to 2019 (3 block years) on the ground that the fee was fixed by the government without the recommendation of the fee regulatory committee and in clear violation of various Supreme Court judgments.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Shameem Akther directed all colleges where the students studied medical courses during the block period of 2017-2019 to pay back the extra fee collected by them to the students, other than the fee fixed by the fee regulatory committee within 30 days from the January 19 and also directed the colleges to issue certificates to the students which were withheld for not paying the additional fees prescribed by the medical colleges as per the GOs issued by the government.
While quashing the GO, the bench said that the state government had no role in the matter of fixing fee for medical courses as it was the task of the fee regulatory committee. Despite the fact that the fee regulatory committee had informed the Telangana government vide its letter dated 01-5-2017 that it had fixed the fee for medical courses for the period of three-block periods and a notification had been issued to this effect, the Telangana government went ahead and issued a GO fixing the fee for the same block periods cited, which is in clear violation of various Supreme Court judgments.
The bench was hearing a batch of PILs and writ petitions filed challenging the decision of the government in issuing GOs permitting the medical colleges to collect fees without the recommendation of the fee regulatory committee.
T. Sujan Kumar Reddy, counsel for the medicos submitted that the government overrode its own GO 29 issued in 2016, prescribing fees to the block years 2016-19, based on the recommendations of the fee regulatory committee. With the connivance of the medical and dental colleges, new GOs had been issued in 2017 by hiking fees up to 100 to 700 percentage.
Sama Sandeep Reddy, counsel for the aggrieved students, brought to the notice of the court that thousands of postgraduate medical and dental doctors were sitting idle as all their original education and course completion certificates were being illegally withheld by the medical and dental colleges in the state.
