Students Must Know Professional Course Fee Before Admission; Mid-Course Hike Only In Exceptional Circumstances: Supreme Court
The Bench noted that mid-course variation permissible only in exceptional instances like unforeseen increase in expenditure; High Courts to ensure fee fixation committees act with efficiency, expertise and integrity.
Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe, Supreme Court
The Supreme Court has held that a student entering a four or five-year professional programme should ordinarily know, at the very threshold, the financial liability that the student or the family is undertaking. Reading the AICTE Regulations, 1994, the National Education Policy, 2020 and the principle of certainty together, the Court directed that the authorities must notify the fee payable for the entire course before a student takes admission.
The Court clarified that the fee structure need not remain incapable of adjustment in every circumstance, and that variation during the course is permissible only in exceptional instances, such as an unforeseen increase in expenditure. Such an adjustment, it held, must remain an exception and cannot become a substitute for timely assessment and proper institutional planning. It also held that fee fixation committees perform an important public function and are subject to judicial review by High Courts.
A Bench of Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe, partly allowing appeals filed by Dr. B.C. Roy Engineering College and other self-financing colleges, observed, “…A student entering a four-or five-year professional programme should ordinarily know, at the very threshold, the financial liability that they or their family is undertaking. Such advance determination promotes transparency, enables informed choice, and facilitates financial planning. This does not mean that the fee 24 structure must remain incapable of adjustment in every conceivable circumstance. Costs may increase unexpectedly because of extraordinary economic conditions, statutory changes or other circumstances which could not reasonably have been anticipated. A narrowly defined mechanism may therefore be provided to accommodate such exceptional circumstances. But such adjustment must remain an exception and cannot become a substitute for timely assessment and proper institutional planning”.
“The regulatory regime for fixation of fees, as contemplated in the decisions of this Court, AICTE Regulations, National Education Policy, 2020, coupled with principles of certainty, necessitates the relevant authorities to notify fee payable for the entire course before a student takes admission. There must be certainty about the fee liability; variation in the fee payable during the subsistence of the course is permissible only in exceptional instances such as unforeseen increase in the expenditure”, it noted further.
Senior Advocates Jaideep Gupta, Harin Raval and Rauf Rahim appeared for the appellants and Senior Advocate Sanjay R. Hegde appeared for the respondents.
Students were admitted to the 2023-27 B.Tech. cohort in September 2023 at the college, whose prospectus stated that the fee structure was subject to change as per Government decision. On October 16, 2023, the West Bengal Higher Education Department notified a revised fee ceiling of ₹1,10,000 per annum per student, applicable from the 2023-24 academic year. On December 15, 2023, the college revised its fees from January 2024 and added a development fee, resulting in a 37.5% increase.
A Single Judge of the Calcutta High Court dismissed the students’ writ petitions on January 15, 2026. A Division Bench, by judgment dated March 23, 2026, held that Regulation 7(7) of the AICTE Regulations contemplates en bloc fixation of fees. It confined the Notification to students admitted on or after October 16, 2023, invoked equity and estoppel, and directed refund or adjustment of the enhanced fees collected.
The Court noted that fee fixation balances the interests of students and parents in certainty, of self-financing institutions in adequate resources, and of society in reasonable fees. Reading Regulations 7(1), 7(4) and 7(5) together, it held that revision is permissible only on the committee’s recommendation, with a minimum three-year gap, based on estimated expenditure. Committees must make recommendations well in advance so that decisions are taken before admissions begin.
It found the State and the committee had acted inefficiently, as the last revision was for 2016-17, and that the college could not be blamed for its anxiety to implement the revised fee. However, it rejected the Division Bench’s reasoning that applying the revised fee would make the Notification retrospective, and held that applying estoppel on the basis of the admission brochure was unsustainable. To that extent the High Court judgment was set aside.
Cause Title: Dr. B.C. Roy Engineering College & Anr. v. The State of West Bengal & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2026 INSC 1120)
Appearances:
Appellants: Senior Advocates Jaideep Gupta, Harin Raval and Rauf Rahim for the Appellants.
Respondents: Senior Advocate Sanjay R. Hegde.