A student seeking compensation and fee refund from Delhi University’s St. Stephen’s college for not being issued a student ID card has been denied relief by a consumer forum.
The student was pursuing a certificate course in German from the college.
‘Fee paid for privilege’
The north Delhi District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum noted that fee paid to a college is not for a service, but for a privilege.
“In this case, the controversy is whether the complainant is entitled to get back the fee to the tune of ₹6,235 for a one-year certificate course in German for the 2008-09 academic year.
Negative, says forum
The plea of the complainant is that he was not provided an identity card, student’s pass and library facility to which he was entitled for the consideration paid.”
A Bench headed by K.S. Mohi, president of the forum, said, “Now, the question arises as to whether the fee of ₹6,235 paid by the complainant to the college can be said to be consideration for securing academic course... The answer is in the negative. There is a plethora of judgments that the service provided by educational institutions is not service, and as such the university and college cannot be said to be the service provider in lieu of fee taken.”
The Bench, which relied on judgments of the Supreme Court and the National Consumer Forum, said, “The fee paid by a student is not consideration for availing any service, but for privilege.”
In this case, the complainant said he had paid ₹6,235 for a certificate course in German at St. Stephen’s college in 2008. He sought a compensation of ₹5 lakh, besides fee refund, because he said he was denied a student ID card, DTC student pass and library facilities.
College responds
The college responded saying that the certificate course was a part-time language course and that there was no provision for issuing identity cards to students pursuing these programmes.
Library fee not charged
It was also submitted that the college did not charge any library fee from part-time students like the complainant.
The bus pass, the college said, was issued by the DTC with St. Stephen’s having no say in the matter.
