Kochi: The Kerala High Court has asked the state to produce the controversial Kerala Medical Education (Regulation and Control of Admission to Private Medical Educational Institutions) Ordinance, 2017 and the order of the committee in the self-financing issue. The court will consider a plea challenging the fee structure for medical seats in self-financing medical colleges fixed by the committee which was constituted as per the ordinance on Jan.11.
The petition was filed by a self-financing medical college, KMCT Medical College, Kozhikode. According to it, the five-member committee had been vested with the power to determine the fee of medical seats in each private medical college. The conferring of such power was against the fundamental rights of the colleges as guaranteed under law and the law declared by the apex court in the TMA Pai Foundation case, the petition said.
The petitioner argued that it was not known how the fee had been arrived at by the committee. It was seen from the order that the fee fixed was a provisional one though the ordinance did not empower the committee to make such provisional fixation of fee. The provisional fixation of fee was even against common sense since no student could be expected to pay a higher fee after notifying a particular fee before joining a course.
