The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has set aside an order passed by the Madurai Kamaraj University in 2016 pertaining to the fixing of renewal of affiliation fee for self-finance courses conducted by member colleges.
The Madurai Kamaraj University Private College Management Association had filed the writ petition in 2016 challenging the order on the ground that while revising the affiliation fee, the university had not followed the procedure under the Madurai Kamaraj University Act, 1965.
The association said that the Senate being the supreme governing body in terms of the Act was empowered to revise the affiliation fee applicable to colleges affiliated to the university. However, the Syndicate had proposed the revision of the affiliation fee.
Justice V. Parthiban observed there was a clear embargo placed upon the Syndicate among others that it shall not propose the draft or amendment of the statute affecting the conditions of affiliation or approval of affiliation.
The proposal of the Syndicate on the revision of affiliation fee was approved by the Senate. Therefore, the revision of the affiliation fee was not in terms of the scheme of the Act. Also, the present revision of the affiliation fee had not received the assent of the Chancellor.
The court observed that there was no quarrel with the legal proposition that university has the power to revise the rates of the affiliation fee and it was not anyone’s case either that university has no power to revise the rate of affiliation fee periodically.
Several revisions had taken place in the past and had been implemented by the university. However, the controversy here was whether the university had followed the procedure that was contemplated in the Act while revising the affiliation fee. The court allowed the petition filed by the association and set aside the order of the Madurai Kamaraj University.
