'Fee Hike Not Oppressive Or Arbitrary': Delhi High Court Dismisses NIFT Students Plea Against Fee Hike
The single judge bench of Justice Jayant Nath of the Delhi High Court on October 21, 2020 passed an order dismissing the writ petition filed by the NIFT students against the 10% fee-hike for NRI quota students and 5% for non-NRI quota students. It was dismissed on the ground that the plea was vague and the fee hike cannot be termed as oppressive or arbitrary. Given the absence...
The single judge bench of Justice Jayant Nath of the Delhi High Court on October 21, 2020 passed an order dismissing the writ petition filed by the NIFT students against the 10% fee-hike for NRI quota students and 5% for non-NRI quota students. It was dismissed on the ground that the plea was vague and the fee hike cannot be termed as oppressive or arbitrary. Given the absence of any grounds warranting an interference of the Court order of dismissal was passed on lack of merits.
The petition was filed by the students of NIFT seeking writ of mandamus for setting aside the fee hike circulars as arbitrary and oppressive. It also sought appropriate directions from the court demanding disclosure of the details of the process undertaken for approving the said fee hike and whether the same was in accordance with the Institute's established procedural requirements.
Ld. Counsel for the petitioners argued that system of fee hike is erroneous and it suffers from lack of transparency. Reliance was placed on clause 5(1) of the National Institute of Fashion Technology Academic Programmes Ordinances 2012 to argue that there was no clarity as to whether the said procedure had been complied with by respondent after obtaining approval of the Board on the recommendation of the Senate or instructions of the Central Government etc. Need for greater transparency was urged by placing reliance on the balance sheet for the financial year ending 31.03.2019 of the Institute recording profits. It was also brought to the attention of the court that an attempt was made to seek information through RTI application but no information was diverged by the respondent institute.
Upon perusal of the communications placed on record it was brought to the attention of the court that although, every year NIFT enhances the fee to mitigate the expenses, in view of the ongoing pandemic this year and with due regard to the economic slowdown in the industry NIFT had considered granting reduction in the tuition fee hike by 5% for the Semester July-December, 2020 as per semester mentioned except for NRI students. Furthermore, to ease the pressure of lump sum payment, the students will be allowed to pay the fee in 3 installments and also be exempted from late fee fine for this semester.
On the basis of the arguments and perusal of communications and circulars issued by NIFT the court dismissed the petition on ground of lack of merit and lack of substance to hold the fee hike as arbitrary and oppressive.
The petitioners were represented by Advs. Abhik Chimni and Mayank Goyal.
The respondents were represented by Adv. Ruchir Mishra.