BENGALURU: Ruling that fees paid during admission should be refunded in entirety, with the deduction of only admission charges in case the student wishes to withdraw his/her admission for any genuine reason, a consumer forum ordered a city-based engineering college to refund fees with interest and also to pay compensation to a 19-year-old medical student.
The Bengaluru Urban District Consumer Redressal Forum comprising president PV Singri and member PK Shantha ordered the New Horizon College of Engineering to refund fees of Rs 3,60,500 with 12 per cent interest and a compensation of Rs 25,000, including the litigation cost of Rs 5,000 to M Ranjitha, a medical student from BTM Layout, for causing mental agony. The forum asked the college to deduct Rs 5,000 as administrative charges from the money to be refunded.
According to the order, the complainant, Ranjitha M, moved the consumer forum seeking it to direct the college to refund the fees and additional charges. Ranjitha, on joining the engineering college, was asked to pay a sum of Rs 50,500 as admission fee on August 9, 2017. Later, the college demanded Rs 40,000 as a one-time fee and did not issue a receipt despite repeated requests made by her.
As a pre-requisite for admission, the college also demanded and obtained all the original qualification documents. However, within a week of admission, Ranjitha got a medical seat and in view of better prospects, she sought the cancellation of her admission and requested for the original documents. She also asked for a refund of fee (Rs.90,500), to help get admission in a medical college.
The college did not heed her request and went on dodging the matter, saying that the entire process would take 15 to 20 days. When Ranjitha approached the Principal of New Horizon College of Engineering for the refund and the original documents, the college started insisting that the original documents would only be returned after she pays an additional sum of Rs 2,70,000 in cash.
Then Ranjitha moved the consumer forum on the grounds that taking custody of original documents and demanding additional money for returning those documents amounts to unfair trade practices and blackmailing. The college authorities, however, defended themselves by stating that the complaint filed was false.
It also stated that Ranjitha had attended a few sessions before withdrawing her admission and due to this a seat has fallen vacant for the entire term causing financial loss. However, it failed to prove that the seat would be left vacant for an entire year.
After hearing both parties, the consumer forum said that there is nothing wrong Ranjitha's part in pursuing medical education by dropping out of the engineering college. It was also observed that she had stopped attending classes only after getting a medical seat and then she had requested for the original documents. Thus, it was evident that the college authorities had blackmailed her and demanded a sum of Rs 2,70,000, which is not justified, it said.