Admitting 42 students in excess of its sanctioned strength for Rs 11 lakh worth MBA course has proved dearly for a Delhi-based management institution. The Supreme Court on Friday directed the institution — FORE School of Management — to deposit five times the fee per student, that comes to a whopping Rs 23.10 crore, as penalty for flouting the law and deprecated such unscrupulous tactics adopted by private colleges while ignoring the plight of innocent students.
Fortunately for the 42 students, who got admitted in April 2016, have since completed the course though not yet given certificates. Not willing to punish the children for the fault of the institution, the apex bench of Justices Deepak Gupta and Surya Kant directed the institution to issue them certificates and directed the penalty to be deposited with the regulatory body — All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) — within two months.
It was an inspection report by the AICTE that nailed the wrongdoing by the institute. The management college wrote to AICTE on March 15, 2016 to increase seats in the MBA (International Business) diploma course from 60 to 120. In addition, it sought permission to start a new course Executive MBA diploma course with 60 seats and further clearance to admit foreign students into this course.
The regulatory body shot down the three demands and informed the same to the institution by a letter dated June 22, 2016. Despite having no permission, the institute admitted 26 students beyond the sanctioned strength of 60 seats in its PGDM (International Business) and 16 in its PGDM regular course, adding up to a total of 42 illegal admissions. Accordingly, a penalty of Rs 23.10 crore was slapped by the body on FORE School of Management.
Arguing for AICTE, advocate Harish Pandey informed Court that the regulatory authority was lenient as it only imposed financial penalty for an act that amounts to fraud. The AICTE was well within its rights to withdraw recognition for the available courses, which it had not done so far, Pandey added.
The Court noted that the penalty was just and proper as it was based on the Approval Process Handbook (2016-17) which allows AICTE to impose penalty on the erring educational institution amounting to five times the fee charged from each of the excess admission. Pandey further informed the Court that the institution was lacking in infrastructure and faculty, which became the ground for the AICTE to reject the demands of the institute to allow foreign students.
WHAT THE COURT SAID
"The petitioner institution could not take the law into its own hand and grant admission to students in excess of the seats permitted by the AICTE. Therefore we have no doubt in our mind that the action of the petitioner in granting admission to the students beyond the seats sanctioned is totally illegal and contrary to law. However, setting aside the admission of the students would be too harsh upon the students who should not suffer for the totally illegal action of the petitioner institution."
