Hyderabad: Telangana high court has directed Guru Nanak Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital at Ibrahimpatnam to refund ₹3.3 lakh paid as tuition fee by a student whose admission to a BHMS course was cancelled after she was found to have scored below the NEET cut-off.
The court said that once the student was allotted the seat by the university, permitted to join the college and had paid ₹3.3 lakh, she should not be deprived of the amount after her admission was cancelled. Shabari Priya was initially allotted a management-quota seat in the college by Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS), following which she paid the entire tuition fee and was permitted to pursue the course. The student contended that the seat had been allotted by the university itself and that she had acted on the allotment by paying the full fee. Her counsel Baglekar Akash Kumar argued that she should not suffer financially for any mistake committed by the authorities while granting the allotment and permitting her to join the course. She sought either restoration of her admission or refund of the fee along with compensation. The university, college and govt did not dispute that the student had initially been allotted the seat and that her admission was later cancelled on account of her NEET score, alleged Akash Kumar, urging the court for relief. The court observed that irrespective of the justification for cancellation, the institution could not retain the tuition fee for a seat in which the student was ultimately not permitted to continue. Without expressing any opinion on the validity of the admission cancellation, the court directed the college to refund the entire amount within six weeks.