The Kerala High Court has set aside an order of Mahatma Gandhi University levying fee for the revision of curriculum and syllabi of courses being offered by its autonomous colleges.
The court directive came on a petition filed by the Consortium of Autonomous Colleges of Kerala and three other autonomous colleges. It had challenged the fixation of ₹50,000 for submission or resubmission of schemes and syllabuses, and strength and eligibility criteria of each undergraduate programme. For the postgraduate programme, the corresponding charge was ₹1 lakh.
The court said there would be a directive to the university to consider the individual requests made by the autonomous colleges and verify the nature of such requests.
If the change in curricula or syllabi did not amount to any approval of the university under Section 118 of the Act, the university shall record the modifications of curricula and syllabi as proposed by the respondents without insisting on the payment of fees as charged in the order without delay, it said.
A close reading of the provisions of Chapter IX of the Mahatma Gandhi University Act, it appeared that the proposals for revision of syllabus made by the Board of Studies of the autonomous colleges need only be approved by the academic council of the college concerned, it said.
