Consumer forum to FIITJEE: Stop ‘unfair trade practices,’ return 50 per cent tuition fee to students

Consumer forum to FIITJEE: Stop unfair trade practice, return 50 per cent tuition fee to students

Despite of being a famous coaching centre for IIT and other engineering entrance examination since 1992, FIITJEE has been recently charged for collecting fees for two years in one go amounts to “unfair trade practice.”

Details of the report:

  • A district consumer disputes redressal forum, headed by its President Justice N K Goel has filed the case
  • As per reports, FIITJEE has been asked to refund Rs 1, 16,564 to Sanjay Choudhary, father of a student, who had taken admission to this coaching centre
  • While giving details about this case, the officials of forum said, “We hold that the institute (FIITJEE) has committed unfair trade practice by collecting fees for two years in one go. We partly allow the complaint and direct OP to refund half of the fees taken by them from the complainant towards the fee for two years duration”
  • “Accordingly we direct the institute to refund a sum of Rs 1, 16,564 towards 50 per cent of the tuition fee paid by the complainant along with interest at 6 per cent per annum,” the forum added.

Statements from father:

Sanjay Choudhary while stating the incident said, his son had joined Saifabad branch of the institute in Hyderabad for a 2-year integrated school programme for IIT-JEE course in 2010.

As reported, the institute had asked him to pay the fee amount of Rs 2, 33,128 for the two years course before the date of joining.

But as soon as his son found that the classes were not up to the mark, he decided to quit.

Futher, Sanjay Choudhary alleged that the institute declined to refund the fee citing the declarations he had made while joining the course.

What did FIITJEE said in its defense?

  • FIITJEE told the forum that the student had left the course voluntarily
  • Therefore, they were not bound to refund the fees as per their terms and conditions

While giving the final verdict, the forum referred to the Supreme Court judgment which had held that an educational institution can only charge prescribed fee for one semester or year.

source”gsmarena”