The Sindh High Court on Tuesday directed the Dow International Medical College (DIMC) to allow medical students to make payments of their tuition fees if they produce a bank deposit slip or a pay order.
The direction came on an application of medical students who challenged the charging of tuition fees in US dollars. The applicants’ counsel submitted that the SHC had restrained the DIMC from taking any adverse action against students who challenged the charging of tuition fees in US dollars and had directed the medical college administration to accept fees from all students in Pakistan rupees as per last year’s dollar rates.
The counsel said that the respondents were compelling students to make payments in dollars despite the court orders. The counsel also expressed apprehension that students may not be allowed to appear in exams.
A high court division bench headed by Justice Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry, after hearing the arguments of the counsel, directed the medical college to allow the students to appear in exams if they produced a bank deposit slip or a pay order with regard to the payment of their tuition fees.
The petitioners had submitted in the petition that they are Pakistani students who took admissions to the DIMC for medical studies and were studying in different years of MBBS. Their counsel said that the college administration is demanding that his clients pay their fees in US dollars despite the fact that they are Pakistanis and earning in rupees.
He submitted that the medical college administration was charging and insisting upon the payment of annual fees from petitioners in US dollar instead of allowing the petitioners to make payments of annual fees in Pakistani rupees.
The counsel said that as per prospectus issued by the respondent for purpose of seeking admissions in the DIMC there has been no mention that the applicant or the student will have to make payment of annual fees in US dollars; however, an affidavit was obtained to this effect. He submitted that there was no provision under the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council whereby any medical university or college can insist on payment of annual fees in a particular currency.
He said that the demand raised by the respondent college was without lawful authority on the one hand and also increasing financial burden of the student keeping in view the fluctuation of the dollar rate as the same has increased twice within the last few months.
He said that the dollar rate has increased over the past year due to the devaluation of the rupee, so it would become impossible for the petitioners to pay their annual fees in dollars due to the shortage of dollars in the money market as well as its increase in value against the rupee.
The counsel said that the respondent college was not accepting the examination forms of the petitioners and sought an interim order directing the college to refrain from taking any coercive action against them.
The court was requested to declare the act of the college to charge fees in US dollars from local students as illegal, and to direct them to take fees from the petitioners on the rate of conversion of US dollars to rupees applied on the date the petitioners had secured admissions at the college.