What has been accepted in principle often defies attempts to put it into practice. The >abolition of capitation fees in education is one such phenomenon. Banned by law in many States and by the Supreme Court through a judgment in 2003, the collection of capitation fees remains a “hard reality”, as a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court put it last week. In yet another attempt to curb the menace, the Bench has asked former Union Minister and senior advocate Salman Khurshid to study the issue in depth and suggest an appropriate mechanism by which it can be effectively stopped. In this, he will have the assistance of the governments of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra in the form of provision of information and data on complaints. The issue has arisen in the course of proceedings related to the fixation of fee by committees in different States. The practice of collecting capitation fee has for many years dominated the discourse on education, along with related issues such as the right of minority communities to administer educational institutions and the fixation of an equitable fee structure, especially for professional courses. The Supreme Court called it illegal in Mohini Jain vs. Karnataka (1992), while in Unnikrishnan J.P. vs. Andhra Pradesh (1993) it questioned the idea of imparting of education being treated as a trade. Finally, in Islamic Academy of Education (2003), the court placed a complete ban on capitation fees.
The general thinking of courts since then has been that while educational institutions are entitled to a surplus of funds that could be used for further expansion and provision of facilities, they should not indulge in profiteering. However, despite judicial opinion and the law standing in their way, private institutions, especially those offering engineering and medical courses, have been collecting huge sums as capitation fees. Anecdotal evidence suggests that an MBBS seat cannot be bought for anything less than Rs.40 lakh, with the sum topping the one-crore mark for post-graduate specialities. With tens of thousands of engineering seats remaining vacant, it may appear that this stream will be free of the menace, but the truth is that some engineering institutions and courses continue to command significant revenue potential. The reason is not hard to find: parents and students are ready to pay fabulous sums for the coveted degree, considering it to be a necessary evil. The Khurshid Committee, while studying the issue, will perhaps need to address this aspect. The education sector has emerged as a significant generator of unaccounted money, as a recent report on black money points out. No law, however stringent, can be made effective unless the targeted illegality attracts public odium.
