Aggrieved students can complain against educational institutions in consumer courts
Is education considered a service under the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) and the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices (MRTP) Act? Can action be taken against a school or college for deficiencies in service? Can an educational institution making misleading claims be taken to court? To all these questions, the answer is yes, but not entirely.
Since 1996, the inexpensive and speedy remedies under the CPA and the MRTP Act have been denied to students suffering from malpractices that various educational institutions have indulged in. Schools, colleges and technical institutes are increasingly becoming commercialised, fleecing through exorbitant tuition fees, donations and capitation charges. Others project their affiliation to various universities and professional councils. In the process, they lure gullible parents to admit their children in these institutions and simply play around with their careers. But not any more.
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Initially, the MRTP Commission and the consumer courts played a significant role in curbing the nefarious practices of such institutions. The MRTP Commission instituted numerous enquiries against schools, prevented them from making tall claims about their services, curtailed the unjustified costs they imposed and compelled them to explicitly declare the status of their recognition and the exact nature of the affiliation that they claimed. But from 1997, the MRTP Commission has not been entertaining any complaint against educational institutions.
On March 18, 1996, the Karnataka High Court delivered a judgement in the NIITE Education Trust case, holding that education was not a