IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) MONDAY, THE TENTH DAY OF NOVEMBER TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE V.V.S.RAO WRIT PETITION NO : 21880 of 2003 Between: Ms.K.Mrudula, D/o. Bakshi Naik, R/o. Kalamadugu Village, Jannaram Mandal, Adilabad District. ..... PETITIONER AND 1 Government of Andhra Pradesh, Rep. by its Principal Secretary ot Government, Health, Medical & Family Welfare Department, Secretariat, Hyderabad. 2 NTR University of Health Sciences, Rep. by its Registrar, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh. 3 Kamineni Institute of Dental Sciences, Rep. by its Principal, Sreepuram, Narketpally, Nalgonda District. 4 MNR Medical College, Rep. by its Principal, MNR Nagar, Fasalwadi, Narsapur Road, Sangareddy, Medak District. .....RESPONDENTS Petition under Article 226 of the constitution of India praying that in the circumstances stated in the Aﬃdavit ﬁled herein the High Court will be pleased to issue a writ order or direction more particularly one in the nature of writ of mandamus declaring the action of the 3rd respondent i.e., Kamineni Institute of Dental Sciences in not releasing the original Certiﬁcates of the petitioner as reﬂected in the Receipt dt. 24.4.2003 as wholly arbitrary, illegal and contrary ot the University Rules and Regulations and also violative of Article 14, 16 and 21 of the Constitution of India and consequently direct them to release the original certiﬁcates of the petitioner forthwith and pass Counsel for the Petitioner:MR.S.SHARAT KUMAR Counsel for the Respondents : GP FOR MEDICAL HEALTH & FAMI.WELFARE The Court made the following : THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE V.V.S.RAO WRIT PETITION No.21880 OF 2003 ORDER: The petitioner, who belongs to Scheduled Tribe (ST) community, is a student of M.B., B.S., in MNR Medical College, Sangareddy, fourth respondent herein. Initially, she had joined in ﬁrst year B.D.S., course in Kamineni Institute of Dental Sciences, third respondent herein. However, third respondent did not return the original certiﬁcates of petitioner. In this writ petition, therefore, petitioner seeks a direction to third respondent to release the original certificates of petitioner. The fact of the matter, which is not in dispute, is as follows. Petitioner appeared for Engineering, Agricultural and Medical Common Entrance Test (EAMCET) 2001-2002 in medical stream. She secured 10,569 rank. She was admitted to I year BDS course in third respondent college at Narketpally on 24.04.2002. While studying BDS, she again appeared for EAMCET 2002-2003. This time she got rank of 7,388. Based on the same, she got a merit seat in fourth respondent college in I year MBBS. As a candidate belonging to ST community, she is entitled to claim fees as well as scholarship from Department of Tribal Welfare, Government of Andhra Pradesh. Be it also noted that when she was admitted to I year BDS course in third respondent college, Department of Tribal Welfare sanctioned a sum of Rs.60,250/- to third respondent towards tuition fees. After taking admission in I year MBBS course in fourth respondent college, she approached Principal of third respondent college for return of certiﬁcates. On the ground that she did not produce ‘No Dues Certiﬁcate’, they did not return the original certiﬁcates. In the meanwhile, her application for sanction of scholarship and sanction of tuition fees to be paid to fourth respondent college was not processed. Therefore, she filed the instant writ petition. The relief is mainly claimed against third respondent, but no counter aﬃdavit is ﬁled. Learned counsel for third respondent, however, submits that a private medical college is entitled to retain the certiﬁcates if the fees for entire professional course like BDS is not paid by candidate when a candidate admitted to the course and leaves in the middle of the course. Reliance is placed on Islamic Academy of Education v State of Karnataka[1]. There is no denial that petitioner was admitted to a merit seat and not to a management seat. Therefore, it is doubtful whether third respondent can retain the certiﬁcates. Secondly, when petitioner approached Government of Andhra Pradesh, they advised third respondent to return the original certiﬁcates without insisting payment of fees for the whole ﬁve years. This was also followed up by letter, dated 27.03.2003 by District Tribal Welfare Oﬃcer, wherein it was clearly mentioned that petitioner was admitted on merit basis and not on management quota. When a candidate is admitted in merit quota, and the fees for the entire year is already sanctioned and paid by Government of Andhra Pradesh on behalf of ST candidate, retention of certiﬁcates is certainly arbitrary. The observations made by Supreme Court in Islamic Academy of Education (supra) are as under. In our view an educational institution can only charge prescribed fees for one semester/year. If an institution feels that any particular student may leave in midstream then, at the highest, it may require that student to give a bond/bank guarantee that the balance fees for the whole course would be received by the institute even if the student left in midstream. If any educational institution has collected fees in advance, only the fees of that semester/year can be used by the institution. The balance fees must be kept invested in ﬁxed deposits in a nationalised bank. As and when fees fall due for a semester/year only the fees falling due for that semester/year can be withdrawn by the institution. The rest must continue to remain deposited till such time that they fall due. At the end of the course the interest earned on these deposits must be paid to the student from whom the fees were collected in advance. A perusal of the above observations would show that a private educational institution is not entitled to collect entire fees for the entire course. They are only entitled to collect the fees prescribed for one year or one semester. In view of the same, third respondent college cannot retain the certiﬁcates of petitioner, who has already completed her MBBS course in May, 2008. Therefore, a Mandamus shall issue to third respondent to return the original certiﬁcates submitted by petitioner at the time of her admission to I year MBBS in third respondent college. This exercise shall be completed within a period of ten days from the date of receipt of copy of the order. Petitioner is also given liberty to approach third respondent with a copy of this order and take return of the certificates. The writ petition is accordingly allowed without any order as to costs. ______________ (V.V.S.RAO,J) 10.11.2008. pln [1] (2003) 6 SCC 697 = AIR 2003 SC 3724.