BCI urges universities, colleges to be considerate in collecting fee from students

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The Bar Council of India (BCI) has urged all law universities and colleges to frame flexible alternative schemes for students to pay their annual and semester fees in easy instalments in view of the raging coronavirus pandemic.

The apex bar body also asked the institutions to consider the savings on electricity and infrastructure maintenance they would have had to bear if classes were conducted physically, and adjust the fees proportionally.

Educational institutions across the country have been shut since mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic. They are allowed to hold online classes.

“All centers of legal education are advised to also consider individual requests from students, if any, concerning payment of fee, in a sympathetic manner, keeping in view the present Covid-19 pandemic situation,” an advisory issued Monday by the BCI's chairperson Manan Kumar Mishra said.

Being the regulator of legal education in the country, the council also asked all the law schools “to be considerate and compassionate to the plea of students and frame alternative and optional schemes for payment of fee through instalments after considering all the factors and permit them to pay fee in equal monthly installments or over a period of time.”

It also urged all the institutions of legal studies to consider individual cases of hardships sympathetically and lend a helping hand to the troubled students without imposing any penalty or without debarring them from access to online classes.

“Therefore, centers of legal education, including universities and colleges are advised to be considerate to the prevalent extraordinary situation in hand and help the students to the extent they can do,” it said.

The council said it was “flooded with requests of students from various Centers of Legal Education throughout the country with one basic and consistent plea that Centers of Legal Education should accept fee in easy installments and waive off certain components of the fee, like utilization of infrastructure fee, library, other facilities etc on the ground that no such utilization is being done as physical classes are not being held.”

“Students and even parents alike have pleaded that during the times of pandemic when many people have been laid off from their jobs, many have got reduced salaries, businesses have turned into loss making ventures, reasonable concessions should be offered to them to enable them to tide over such difficulties,” it noted.