Supreme Court: fee fixed for a professional course at admission can't be revised once students are enrolled

Students admitted to the B.Tech course at Dr. B.C. Roy Engineering College for 2023-27 through West Bengal's joint counselling challenged the college's attempt, after their first semester, to apply a revised fee notified by the State's fee fixation committee on 16 October 2023 to their entire batch. The Calcutta High Court's Division Bench held the fee fixed at the start of a course cannot be varied midstream, while also invoking equity and estoppel against the college based on its admission brochure. The Supreme Court upheld the core conclusion but for independent reasons, and corrected the High Court's equity-based reasoning.

Drawing on TMA Pai Foundation and P.A. Inamdar, it held that fee fixation committees are not advisory bodies but quasi-regulatory authorities performing a public function, so their decisions are subject to full judicial review for efficiency, expertise and integrity. Balancing students' interest in a certain, affordable fee against a self-financing institution's need for adequate resources, the Court held that the entire course's fee must be notified and certain before a student takes admission, and can be varied during the course only in exceptional circumstances such as an unforeseen rise in costs. It attributed the dispute to the State's delay in notifying the revised fee before the academic session began, partly allowed the college's appeals, and affirmed the High Court's final directions on implementing the revised fee without endorsing its equity-based route to them.