Delhi HC Issues Notice In PIL Challenging Exorbitant Fees For Competitive Exams [Read Petition]

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice in a PIL seeking "equal opportunity to enter workforce" and regularization of "exorbitant fee" and GST charged for applying for various entrance examination and posts advertised by State and its agencies.

The PIL filed by one Ateet Bansal through Advocate Charu Mathur urged the court to declare "Right to Access to equal opportunity to enter workforce" as a facet of Right to Life within the meaning of Article 21 of the Constitution".

An MBA and engaged in private job for almost eight years, the petitioner came across high fee charged as application fee when he chose to apply for government job and discovered that in many cases, examinations are either cancelled or not conducted without refunding the application fees.

The petitioner himself had applied for the post of Rajya Sabha interpreter in 2017. He paid the requisite fee and wrote the exam in year 2018 but the results have not been declared till date.

The petitioner also rues GST of 18 per cent on various examinations when "education and job creation should be basic part of the good governance to empower nation".

He cited the example of GST charged on IIT examination online registration despite which the examination centers lack basic facilities and there is no place to keep basic objects like car keys, mobiles, handbags.

The petition stresses that charging of high application fee for entrance examinations is pushing candidates from economically weaker sections of the society out of the race when as per 2011-12 census the total number of poor has reached 363 million from 269 million.

"This raise in the poverty line income bar means 93.7 million more people are now below poverty line (BPL). This means that certainly for BPL families and lower middle class families it's impossible to allow their children to sit for entrance examination or to try their luck at various recruitments due to high application fee.

The petition calls for a check on commercialization of education at the very threshold as it says, "On an average in an entrance year post 12 th /graduation, if a candidate wishes to secure a good rank in a college of her choice, she has to spend minimum Rs 20,000-30,000 for only applying in various colleges.

To drive home his point, the petitioner cited example of entrance examination application fee for three popular streams of Medicine, Engineering, and Law.

"National Testing Agency (NTA) conducts NEET for Medicine(UG), IIT JEE for Engineering and is staking claim to conduct CLAT as well.There could be many other departments in the list. NEET charged Rs 1400 for general category per application in year 2017 and year 2018 thereby collecting Rs 200 crore approximately. IIT JEE application was for Rs 900 and total collection was Rs 90 crore with sale of 9.65 lakh forms. CLAT had a fee of Rs 4000 per application ending up in total collection of Rs 24 crores," the petition says.

That is not all. The petitioner highlighted "great discrepancy" in fee charged for post graduate medical course.

"National Board of Examination (NBE) is an autonomous government agency under the ministry of health that conducts the national entrance test for post-graduate medical course. It charges Rs 3,750 from each student (in general and OBC categories) for applying for the test, while institutes like AIIMS charge Rs 1,000 and Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER) charges Rs 1,600 per application," it says.

Govt recruitment a money making business?

Not just the competitive examinations, the petition also highlights how the government agencies charge fee for recruitment to various posts even as in many cases, the advertised post is never filled and all the money so collected is pocketed by the State.

"…in 2019 Ministry of Railways advertised over 1 lakh jobs in grade III and IV. The application fee to apply for General category male was Rs 500. Around 2 crore candidates applied. Thus, the Ministry garnered almost Rs 1000 crores from recruitment application fee only. Similarly, for medical entrance examination in 2018 around 12 lakh candidates applied with the application fee for General Category male at Rs 1400. Thus, the examination conducting body garnered Rs 200 crores.

"…under the Constitution of India as well as under the Employment Exchange Act, 1959, it is the duty of the State to advertise, notify and grant employment to the citizens. It can be very well understood that some nominal fees has to be charged to conduct examinations but this cannot become a profit making tool. The UPSC charges only Rs 100 as a one time fee for registration. Similarly SSC also charges a very nominal amount. The autonomous bodies are therefore to be restricted by the Union of India from charging exorbitant amount of money as examination fees," says the petitioner.

The petition also cites the example of Air India wherein it charged a fee of Rs 1000 for Rs 15,000 contractual job but didn't announce the result online, as promised and the amount was also forfeited. In response to an RTI query, Air India said the selected candidates have been intimated separately. In the same RTI, it was revealed that Rs 6 lakhs was collected in the process of recruitment and utilized internally.

National Career Service portal low in action?

The petition rues how the National Career Service Portal launched by the Ministry of Labour and Employment was not up to the mark.

"As per ministry's statement, the portal possesses more than 3.11 core registered job-seekers and more than 9 lakhs employers from across the country. However, on examination this portal merely collate jobs from private portals like Monster.com, naukri.com etc. This is Rs 100 core portal high on objectives but low in action," says the petitioner while praying that the portal be made fully functional, a comprehensive portal for an advertisement to all central government, state governments and other instrumentalities of State recruitments.

"All Government jobs and vacancies should compulsorily be posted on this portal and the jobs must be advertised extensively," it prays.

Click here to download the Petition