New Delhi:The Supreme Court of India has dismissed a petition filed by an Economically Weaker Section category student seeking a direction to reduce the tuition fees charged by private medical colleges in Rajasthan. A bench comprising Justice B.V. Nagarathna and Justice Joymalya Bagchi ruled that the constitutional reservation for the economically underprivileged operates strictly at the initial stage of admission and does not automatically entitle a candidate to subsidised or discounted tuition fees in self-financing institutions.
The special leave petition was filed by twenty-two-year-old NEET-UG aspirant Harshvardhan Singh, who was allotted a general category seat in a private medical institution in November 2025 with an annual tuition fee of 18.9 lakh rupees. The petitioner argued that the prevailing fee structures in Rajasthan’s private medical colleges, which range between 18.9 lakh rupees and 25 lakh rupees per annum, directly conflict with the statutory EWS eligibility criterion that mandates a family income ceiling of 8 lakh rupees. The petitioner’s counsel argued that charging such exorbitant amounts renders the 10 per cent constitutional reservation illusory and inaccessible for lower-income families, creating an unaffordable financial barrier to professional education.
Rejecting the plea, the bench emphasized that private medical colleges are self-financing entities that do not receive state subsidies, making it legally unfeasible to compel them to match the fee models of state-funded government institutions. Justice Nagarathna observed that while capitation fees are strictly prohibited under the landmark T.M.A. Pai judgment, private institutions remain fully entitled to recover their standard regulatory-approved college fees to sustain operations and continue training physicians. Addressing the applicant’s financial constraints, the apex court observed that candidates unable to meet the commercial cost of private education must actively look for scholarships, financial subvention schemes, or government quota allocations. While the court upheld the prior decision of the Rajasthan High Court by validating the current fee framework, it chose to keep the broader question of law open for potential future review.
