The Madras High Court on Wednesday put a private medical college in a fix by directing it to deposit capitation fees of ₹2.76 crore, reportedly collected from the parents of five MBBS aspirants in 2019 without issuing any receipt, in a separate account so that the amount can be used to provide special scholarship to meritorious students admitted in government or private colleges in the academic year 2023-24.
Justice R. Suresh Kumar ordered that if Sri Muthukumaran Medical College Hospital and Research Institute near Mangadu in Chennai decides to agitate the issue by denying the receipt of capitation fees, then it would have to face a Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) inquiry with respect to affidavits filed by the parents of the five students confirming the payment of capitation fees.
The judge held that the parents would not be entitled to a refund of the capitation fees since they had gotten their wards admitted to the college on the last day of admission on August 30, 2019 without their names having been sponsored by the Selection Committee of the Directorate of Medical Education. However, since the students had already completed four years of studies, he let them complete their course.
