Justice Juvvadi Sridevi of the High Court passed an interim order permitting private engineering colleges to collect tuition fees directly from students eligible for the fee reimbursement scheme from the academic year 2026-27, if the government failed to reimburse the fees to the colleges.
Describing the order ‘as an interim measure’, the judge made it clear that the private colleges should refund the tuition fees to the respective students if the writ petitions filed by them were dismissed during the final adjudication. The order was passed after hearing contentions in a batch of 14 writ petitions filed by different private colleges.
The fee reimbursement scheme, introduced in 2008 in the undivided State of Andhra Pradesh, was extended to students from all sections if they fell in the prescribed income limits.
The colleges were stated to be financially crippled and unable to generate the requisite revenue for their day-to-day administration, including payment of salaries to teaching and non-teaching staff, the judge noted. The counsels for the colleges contended that not releasing crores of rupees under the fee reimbursement scheme made it difficult for them to operate the colleges. The government counsel informed the bench that, due to budget sessions, necessary instructions could not be secured on releasing the funds for the tokens which were already issued.
