NEW DELHI: The Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has, once again, directed all technical institutions to refund fees and return original documents to students who want to withdraw their admissions.

This has been done to prevent professional institutions from exploiting students from "exercising other options of joining institutions of their choice."

The Ministry has instructed the All-India Council for Technical Education and the University Grants Commission to take punitive action against institutions and varsities, including deemed varsities, if they fail to enforce these directions. This could include withdrawal of approval and recognition of erring institutions.

As per the latest instructions, the entire fees will have to be refunded to the student after deducting the processing fee of not more than Rs.1,000 in case a student withdraws from the programme. No institution will be allowed to retain the school or institution-leaving certificate in original, and should a student leave after joining the course, the institution will have to return the fees collected with proportionate deductions of monthly fee and hostel rent, wherever applicable.

Also, the institutions will have to maintain a waitlist of students. In the event of a student withdrawing before the starting of the course, the waitlisted candidates will have to be given admission against the vacant seat.

According to a notice issued by the Ministry here on Tuesday, technical institutions were admitting students to various courses much before the actual starting of an academic session, collecting full fees from the admitted students; and, retaining their school leaving certificates in the original to retain the students, if they wished to join other institutions. Also, there were complaints that the institutions were reportedly confiscating the fee paid if a student failed to join by the specified date.

The Ministry had earlier issued these instructions through a public notice to pre-empt professional institutions from taking undue advantage of the stalemate over reservation for Other Backward Classes as the Supreme Court stayed the implementation of the reservation and release of admission lists to the Central educational institutions, including the Indian Institutes of Management, was put on the hold. However, the Ministry has since allowed the elite educational institutions to release the list for the 2007-08 academic year to last year's capacity, pending the final verdict.

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