The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Form committee for fixing fee for teacher training institutes: Court

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Wednesday, Dec 03, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Form committee for fixing fee for teacher training institutes: Court

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: Stating that an August 2007 government order constituting a Fee Committee for self-financing teacher training institutes is unsustainable, the Madras High Court has directed the School Education Secretary to form a committee in compliance with the orders of the Supreme Court within four weeks to enable the committee to fix proper fees before the commencement of academic year 2009-2010.

In his common order on writ petitions challenging the government order, Justice N.Paul Vasanthakumar said the Tamil Nadu government was bound to constitute a committee headed by a retired High Court Judge.

The petitioners said the government issued the impugned order and appointed a committee, comprising five members, which was not headed by a retired High Court Judge.

The committee has been asked to hold office for three years.

The panel was in contravention of the Supreme Court judgments solely relying upon NCTE regulations of 2002, which was framed based on the apex court judgment in the Unnikrishnan case, which was subsequently overruled by a Constitution Bench in T.M.A.Pai case.

Mr.Justice Paul Vasanthakumar said the impugned G.O. could not be sustained as it contravened the Supreme Court judgments in T.M.A. Pai Foundation, Islamic Academy of Education and P.A.Inamdar cases.

Till date, no structure had been fixed for the institutes regarding fee collection. Hitherto, the authorities, by their inaction, allowed the managements to collect fees without any restriction.

In the counter, it had been stated that huge amount of fees was being collected from students.

The respondents alone were responsible for such a state of affairs.

The Judge said the fact was noticed by him while hearing the interim application filed by the teacher training institutions.

In his interim order in July, he had noted the fee structure fixed by the Fee Committee in Puducherry, headed by a retired High Court Judge, fixing Rs.23,000 for each student per year from 2004-2005 academic year.

As an interim measure, he had also fixed Rs.23,000 per student (first year students) for 2008-2009 and the unaided teacher training institutions were allowed to collect only Rs.23,000 from all students.

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