High Court relief to Iranian students

The matter relates to 14 Iranian students who were admitted to the college on collection of capitation fee despite being aware that they had not taken National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET). The students on filing a police complaint also moved the High Court seeking refund of the money paid.

During the hearing on Thursday, senior Counsel PR Raman appearing for the college submitted it is willing to refund the fees paid by the 14 persons except for one Daniel Vazirzadh, who didn’t pay up.

However, though the amount which is accepted to be refunded was disputed by advocate RC Paul Kanagaraj appearing for a student, Justice Prakash in his interim order said, “At this juncture the court does not want to go into that aspect. Since this court is of the view that at the outset the students shall get back at least the admitted amounts immediately.” 

Also, the Assistant Solicitor General Karthikeyan submitted that the Centre would extend all help to the Iranian students to get their money refunded. He also handed over a list of the Iranian students who had paid the money and submitted that another college had misled students in a similar manner and the number of victim students may go up to thirty.

However, the judge on recording the submission that the total amount for refund works out to Rs 53.40 lakh of which one of the students was paid Rs 5.5 lakh in open court on Wednesday and the remaining disbursal will be done by June 11, directed the institute to hand over all the Demand Drafts to the Iranian Counsel General to ensure that the amount reaches the students in Iran since all of them had returned on expiry of their visa. The case posted for compliance on June 11.