No Illegality, Procedure Was Followed: Rajasthan HC Upholds State University's Notification Increasing College Affiliation Fee For 2025-26

The  Rajasthan High Court sets aside challenge to a notification of State University of Health Sciences that increased affiliation fee of colleges for the academic session 2025-26, after noting that procedure for such increase was duly followed and hence there was no illegality committed. 

Justice Vinit Kumar Mathur was hearing a petition that sought quashing of the notification by RUHS that increased affiliation fees for academic session 2024-25 on the grounds that such notification was in violation of the Clause of the 2020 Notification.

It was the case of the petitioners that the 2020 Notification provided for an increase in the affiliation fee for the academic session 2020-21, and since then there had been no amendment to the 2020 Notification, nor any new notification had been issued. Hence, the 2020 Notification could not be used for increasing the fee for academic session 2025-26.

On the contrary, it was submitted on behalf of Rajasthan University of Health Sciences (RUHS) that the bare reading of the Clause reflected that the affiliation fee calendar and schedule shall be notified by RUHS every year and the affiliation fee shall be decided by the Board of Management on the recommendation of the Finance Committee of the University. RUHS submitted the minutes of the meetings of the Finance Committee as well as the Board to argue compliance with this procedure.

After hearing the contentions and perusing the records, the Court agreed with the arguments put forth on behalf of RUHS and opined that,

“A conjoint reading of entire Sub Clause (b) shows that on the recommendation of Finance Committee, the Board of Management will decide the affiliation. The fact of the matter is that Sub Clause (b) of Clause 5 of the Ordinance No.80 of the notification has given a complete mechanism for increase of affiliation fees and therefore, one cannot be swayed by the fact that the Ordinance No.80 speaks about only the increase of affiliation fee for the academic session 2020-21. Since it was only for that contingency period, therefore, the same decision was taken into consideration for increase of affiliation fees to the extent of 15%.Since Sub Clause (b) of Clause 5 of the Ordinance No.80 of the notification provides the procedure for increase of affiliation fees and the same has been followed in the present case by taking the recommendations of the Finance Committee and by placing the same in the meeting of the Board of Management, therefore, the order/notification impugned in the present case has been issued.”

In this light, it was highlighted that "since the procedure" for increasing the affiliation fees was followed by RUHS by taking recommendations of the Finance Committee and placing the same before the Board of Management, "no illegality" was committed.

Accordingly, the petition was dismissed.

Title: Private Physiotherapy, Nursing & Para Medical Institutions Society v Rajasthan University of Health Sciences

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Raj) 80

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