Chandigarh, September 7
The Punjab Advocate-General (AG), Mr Rajinder Singh Cheema, has told the Punjab Government that the Justice G.R. Majithia Committee on Fee Fixation is a “stop-gap measure or an ad-hoc arrangement”.

In a detailed legal opinion submitted to the government on the July 8 report of the Majithia panel, imposing its own fee structure on unaided self-financing minority and non-minority institutions in Punjab, Mr Cheema has said that unrealistic or arbitrary decisions of the committee are subject to challenge.

He has also said that the committee and the government cannot be perceived to be in opposition to each other and that the committee is merely filling the vacuum caused due to lack of regulation/legislation by the state.

Mr Cheema has also noted that it is the state government, which is duty-bound to perform the function of creating and executing appropriate regulatory mechanism in line with the Supreme Court judgements. The state also has the duty to regulate admission as well as fee structure, the AG has observed.

The government had sought the legal advice of the AG on the issue after the Justice Majithia Committee refused to heed the government’s requests on the issue of fee fixation of various medical and other professional colleges.

The July 8 report was sent back to the panel by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh for reconsideration as there were disparities in the fee structure of various dental and homoeopathic colleges.

But, the committee refused to change its recommendations on the grounds that the same were justified.

Incidentally, the previous AG, Mr Harbhagwan Singh, had opined that the government was “bound” by the orders of the committee.

But, Mr Cheema feels otherwise. He has opined that in the matters of fee fixation, it is the state which has to “act as regulatory authority in the matter of fixation of fair and realistic fee structure and create safeguards against exploitative system”.