BJP leader and patron of ‘Private Medical universities joint forum of parents’, Ravindra Jugran has accused the Uttarakhand Government for insulting the judiciary by consistently ignoring its orders on refund of excess fee charged by the private Ayurveda colleges of the State. Addressing media persons here on Wednesday, Jugran said that the State Government should enforce the orders of Uttarakhand High Court (HC) without any further delay.

He said that the students of the private Ayurveda colleges are on the path of agitation from last many days but unfortunately, the system is paying no heed to their justified demand. The BJP leader and statehood activist said that Union Human Resource Development Minister (HRD) Minister Ramesh Pokhriyak Nishank is associated with one private Ayurveda college which is ignoring the orders of the HC. Jugran claimed that this college was set up for charitable activity and was provided land at very cheap rate.

He also claimed that Ayush Minister Harak Singh Rawat also owns an Ayurveda college which is also giving no respect to the orders of the HC. The BJP leader also claimed that the land over which this college having connection with the Minister is located is disputed. Jugran said that it is unfortunate that the Patanjali college of Yog Guru Baba Ramdev too is guilty of not following the order of the HC. He said that the notice of contempt of court is served  on Acharya Balkrishna.

Launching a scathing attack on the State Government Jugran said that the way orders of the HC are consistently being ignored prove that anarchy prevails in the State where law of land is not being followed.

He said that the Governor of Uttarakhand who is the guardian of the constitution too is not showing any interest on getting the orders of the court implemented.

The petitioner, Lalit Mohan Tiwari, said that the private colleges are harassing the students and are ignoring the orders of the Uttarakhand HC and the order of the State Government on refund of fees.

The Issue

The Uttarakhand Government in the year 2015 had released a Government Order (GO) for increase in fees of the private Ayurveda Colleges of the State.

This GO was issued without necessary recommendation of the fee fixation committee and was implemented from back date in gross violation of all norms. On the orders of Supreme Court (SC), a fee fixation committee decides on the fee structure of private colleges.

On July 2018, the HC cancelled the GO and directed that the increased fee should be refunded within 15 days.

The private colleges challenged this order but on October 9, 2018, a bench of HC upheld the earlier decision of single bench. In pursuance of the HC order, the State Government passed the orders for fee refund but the administrators of these colleges are not following the order. Interestingly the State administration has issued three orders dated on November 2, 2018, March 22,2019 and April 23, 2019 asking the private colleges to refund the fee as per the orders of the HC but the private colleges are continuing their defiance.

On September 23 , 2019  the HC issued  orders to 13 private colleges on a contempt petition but even it has not yielded anything.

Meanwhile, the students of these colleges continued their agitation at the protest site near Parade ground on the issue.