The order also highlighted the importance of fee fixation committees and stressed the need to institutionalise them.Underlining the need for certainty in fee structures, the Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that fee payable for professional education through self-financing Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) cannot be changed midstream.A bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Alok Aradhe said, “The regulatory regime for fixation of fees, as contemplated in the decisions of this Court, AICTE Regulations, National Education Policy, 2020, coupled with principles of certainty, necessitates the relevant authorities to notify fee payable for the entire course before a student takes admission. There must be certainty about the fee liability; variation in the fee payable during the subsistence of the course is permissible only in exceptional instances such as unforeseen increase in the expenditure.”The court said, “The determination of the fee payable for professional education such as medicine, engineering, pharmacy etc. conducted by professional HEIs involves balancing of two legitimate interests. Firstly, the interest of students and their parents in fixation of a reasonable fee, as also the certainty about the quantum and the time. Secondly, the interest of self-financing HEIs in securing adequate resources for developing necessary infrastructure and provide quality education.”The order also highlighted the importance of fee fixation committees and stressed the need to institutionalise them. “The fee fixation committees have a statutory foundation and have an important public purpose to subserve. The institutionalisation of these committees is necessary for realising the interests of aspiring students for professional higher education and also for establishing credible higher and professional educational institutions through private enterprise. High Courts will exercise due judicial review to ensure that these committees perform their duties with institutional efficiency, expertise, and integrity,” the court said.The decision came on an appeal by Association of Professional Academic Institutes, West Bengal, and others challenging a Calcutta High Court Division Bench order against the semester fee revision undertaken mid-term by the Dr B C Roy Engineering College, a self-financing college affiliated to the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology. The resultant impact of the revised structure was a 37.5% increase in the fees payable by each student.The Division Bench was of the view that it cannot be applied retrospectively and directed refund of the enhanced fee collected from students.