HC increases Tentative MBBS fees by 10 percent in Andhra Pradesh

Amaravati: Taking note of the inflation factor, the Andhra Pradesh High Court enhanced the tentative fees in the private medical and dental institutes for the present academic year 2023-2024 by 10% from last year.

The High Court bench opined, “this Court is of the considered view that the factor of inflation is an admitted factor by the Government as well as other public/financial institutions, the enhancement of fee at the reasonable rate is mandatory due to increase in price raise and expenditure.”

The observation from the High Court bench comes while the court was considering a plea by Andhra Pradesh Private Medical and Dental Colleges Management against fee structure.

In the plea, the management challenged the notification dated 30.06.2022 issued by Andhra Pradesh Higher Education and Regulatory Commission for fixing the fee regarding the professional colleges within the State of Andhra Pradesh.

Also Read: MBBS fee cannot be Enhanced without AFRC recommendations: Supreme Court

As per the latest media report by Live Law, the petitioners contended that while fixing the fees, the Commission did not consider for inclusion of expenditure on the part of the institutes.

On the other hand, the Government Pleader appearing for the Higher Education and the counsel for Medical, Health and Family Welfare submitted before the High Court bench that interfering or stalling the proposed counselling for MBBS (UG) course pursuant to the notification may mess up with the Academic year and the seats availability for the students of Andhra Pradesh.

Further, it was submitted on behalf of the Government that the fees for the present academic year i.e. 2023-2024 is not finalized and the fees for the last academic year 2022-2023 would be considered tentatively and after finalizing the entire procedure, the fee fixed by Regulatory Commission would be the final fees.

However, responding to this, the management of Private and Dental Colleges submitted that for the academic year 2022-2023, the fee was already fixed and it should be enhanced at a minimum rate of percentage by considering the inflation factor. In this regard, the petitioners suggested a 15% enhancement upon the fee for the last academic year, which would be considered tentatively for the present academic year 2023-2024.

After considering the matter and perusing the matter on record, the court opined that the factor of inflation was an admitted factor by the State as well as other public/financial institutes. Therefore, the court observed that enhancing the fee at the reasonable rate is mandatory because of the increase in price raise and expenditure.

Considering this, the court enhanced the existing fee structure for last academic year i.e. 2022-2023 at the rate of 10% for the present academic year. The bench directed the authorities to notify the enhanced fee for the present academic year at the rate of 10% as a tentative fee till final fee was fixed as per AP Higher Education Regulatory and Monitoring Commission Act, 2019 and Rules thereunder.