Duped students must get Rs 2L payout: SC

Updated on: Friday, July 23, 2010

Students lured into taking admission through false advertisements by unrecognised and non-affiliated colleges should be compensated heavily by these institutions, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday.

"Why not pay Rs 2 lakh to each student duped by such institutions? It's quite like railway accidents where the government compensates the victims. Here the students are the victims by the career accident. Only if these bogus institutions are made to pay, then this menace will stop," it said.

These remarks came from a Bench comprising Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly, which was taken aback by the rampancy of unrecognised and non-affiliated colleges offering BEd courses to students, who at the end of the course find themselves in the lurch.

The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) also came for a lot of flak, despite its member secretary Hasib Ahmed trying to explain the steps being taken to take action against those institutions which illegally admitted students and being strict in granting recognition to colleges.

The Bench asked him to file an affidavit by Thursday promising that not a single institution not meeting the criteria and infrastructure requirement will be given recognition henceforth.

It said: "In India, 99% of the government and private colleges do not have infrastructure as required under the statute. They are just like shops fleecing money from the students and not bothering about their future."

The Bench was dealing with appeals by a large number of colleges in the western region which had admitted students without having proper sanction. It found out that around 1,200 colleges were given recognition by NCTE in a period of 10 years and wondered as to how so many inspections were carried out by the regulatory body.

"Do not compromise with the standards of education. We have a political class which wants to practice what was prevalent long ago in US -- appoint party men to posts of teachers. Here in India, just before the elections the ruling parties would come out with advertisements for filling thousands of teachers' posts. This is nothing but playing with the future of the students," the Bench said while reserving verdict in the cases.

Duped students must get Rs 2L payout: SC

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