BHOPAL/JABALPUR: Madhya Pradesh high court has said that a student, who obtained a degree from a university that is now in Chhattisgarh but was part of Madhya Pradesh before its bifurcation, can't be treated as a student from outside the state and levied additional charge for enrollment in an MP university.
The court order came in response to a petition filed by a student from Rewa in MP, who was asked to deposit double the amount of fees paid by other students from the state for enrollment in a course because he had completed his BA from Guru Ghasidas University in Bilaspur, which is now in Chhattisgarh.
Manoj Kumar Pandey’s petition says that he graduated in Bilaspur in 1997 and enrolled in an LLB course in a government college in Teonthar in Rewa district in 2020. The college is affiliated to Awadhesh Pratap Singh University, Rewa.
Pandey was surprised when he was asked to deposit an enrollment fee of Rs 1,000, while other students from MP were charged Rs 500, ‘because his graduation was from another state’. Pandey contended that in 1997, Bilaspur was part of MP, so he shouldn’t be treated as a student from another state.
A division bench of Justice Sujoy Paul and Justice D D Bansal, allowing the petition, held that a student, who was a student of a university or school somewhere in Chhattisgarh in undivided MP cannot be treated as a student from outside the state, and ordered the college to return the additional Rs 500 charged from him. Advocate Nityanand Mishra appeared for the petitioner.
