Is a education a service that the student is buying from the insitution?

An article in Business standard describes the history on this intrepretation of whether education is a service that the student is buying from the institution. A good overview of how this has evolved over the years to the current situation

Does education fall under the regulatory control of the consumer courts or the MRTP Commission? This has been a controversial question.

The answer can be yes if and only if education comes within the definition of a ‘service’ as enshrined in the MRTP Act, 1969 and the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.

Various conflicting rulings have been handed down by the respective judicial authorities and the matter was undecided for a very long period.

In June 1, 1988 the MRTP Commission for the first time held that education was a service and that schools, colleges and other institutions imparting education were covered under the regulatory control of the MRTP Commission.

Hundred of complaints against different educational institutions were filed before the commission and orders were passed against them wherever they were found to be deficient in their services.

On May 15, 1998, however, a full bench of the MRTP Commission suddenly did a complete turnaround and in the case of Holy Angels School held that education was not a service giving rise to an action under the MRTP Act.

All pending cases against schools and colleges were then summarily dismissed.

The Consumer Protection Act, 1986 too has adopted practically a similar definition of the term ‘service’.

Remedies provided under this Act are inexpensive and speedy and therefore a number of complaints against educational institutions were filed in various district consumer disputes redressal forums throughout the country.

Conflicting decisions were given by these courts as well and no one was clear on the subject until the apex National Commission categorically held in the case of Bhupesh Khurana v Vishwa Budha Parishad 2000 CTJ 801 (CP) that educational institutions are fully covered by the Consumer Protection Act.

Since then, cases against educational institutions have been filed before the consumer courts.

As stated above, these courts, unlike the MRTP Commission, do not possess suo motu powers and can deal only with individual complaints. They cannot pass interim injunctions and their impact has therefore not been significant.

The scenario seems to have changed completely under the MRTP Act as well.

On August 28, 2003 a full bench of the MRTP Commission handed down a landmark judgement running into 38 pages in the matter of Siddhartha Lamba v. The Principal, Sanjivini Rural Education society college of Engineering.

The commission unanimously held that the imparting of education comes within the purview of the MRTP Act and that the MRTP Commission would henceforward be able to entertain complaints against the educational institutions functioning throughout the country if found indulging in unfair and/or restrictive trade practices or imposing unjustified costs on the consumers of their services.

Is the MRTP Act being referred to here different from the Competition Act 2002 which was enacted on January 13, 2003? Is the MRTP Act of 1969 still in vogue or has the Competition Act replaced it? A Google search threw up the following from a Press Release from the Ministry of Law and Justice :

... enactment of the Competition Act, 2002 designed to set up a Competition Commission of India by dismantling Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) and repealing the MRTP Act, 1969 to regulate competition, quality of products and services, prevent abuse of dominance and fixing a threshold limit for merger and de-merger of companies intended to give impetus to second generation of economic reforms.

So the MRTP Act is now non-existent and what the Business Standard article means I presume is actually the Competition Act, 2002, which does indeed treat education as a service. The definitions section of the Competition Act, 2002 states:

(u) "service" means service of any description which is made available to potential users and includes the provision of services in connection with business of any industrial or commercial matters such as banking, communication, education, financing, insurance, chit funds, real estate, transport, storage, material treatment, processing, supply of electrical or other energy, boarding, lodging, entertainment, amusement, construction, repair, conveying of news or information and advertising;

The Business Standard article ends by saying:

Both educational institutions and the consumers of educational services must take note of the above developments. Schools must realise that imposing high cost on the consumers of their services will no longer be allowed.

The consumers can in appropriate cases resort to an action under the MRTP Act, which is not only an inexpensive process but also an effective one.

Can the courts disallow the imposing of high costs on any service under normal circumstances (education may be a special type of service with some constraints, though)? Wouldn't it be upto the customer to decide if she is being charged too much or not? If the customer decides that she is willing to pay the price for the service, she can't possibly have any cause for complaint, except if the educational institution failed to provided the promised level/quality of service which the customer paid for. So it seems to me that the article is mistaken in saying that schools will no longer be allowed to impose "high" (how does one define "high" anyway) costs on the consumers. Schools may now be much more accountable than ever before for delivering on their promises though.

Comments

[LOVEJIT SINGH]

Sir I have the Diploma . Now I am wanted the B.Tech through Distance Mod.pls tell me Is ICAI insitutte in Chandighar Sco 80 -82 Sec 34-A. Recommend by AICTE.
Thanks
LOVEJIT SINGH
09872823682

[tasduk]

SIR, i want to join MBA or MCA In ALLAHBAD AGRICULTURE (Deemed University)Is Recognised From AICTE&UGC? Please Guide Me

[hyderali]

sir
as i am sudinge in uts university in 12th in p.c.m.b. and i want to join for b.e in goverement
i want to now that this university is Recognised
from govrement or not pla guid me

[hyderali]

sir
as i am sudinge in uts university in 12th in p.c.m.b. and i want to join for b.e in goverement
i want to now that this university is Recognised
from govrement or not pla guid me

hyderali

[Preety Arora]

dear sir ,iam planning to take addmission in IASE deemed university,rajasthan. MBA programme of this university is approved by UGC or AICTE or not ?.Whether degree is valid or not Pl. give reply in order to save my time and money. thanks

[avinash]

hellow sir,
my name is Avinash,i am doing my MSC(IT) first year.I am studing in CENTER FOR INFORMATION
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY(CIST) approved to UNIVERSITY OF MYSORE.I want to know whether this course(MSC)has AICTE or UGC recognation.Can i take GATE exam to do
M.Tec.please give me details about this to my email id which i have given here avi1_indian@rediff.com

[avinash]

hellow sir,
my name is Avinash,i am doing my MSC(IT) first year.I am studing in CENTER FOR INFORMATION
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY(CIST) approved to UNIVERSITY OF MYSORE.I want to know whether this course(MSC)has AICTE or UGC recognation.Can i take GATE exam to do
M.Tec.please give me details about this to my email id which i have given here avi1_indian@rediff.com

[avinash]

hellow sir,
my name is Avinash,i am doing my MSC(IT) first year.I am studing in CENTER FOR INFORMATION
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY(CIST) approved to UNIVERSITY OF MYSORE.I want to know whether this course(MSC)has AICTE or UGC recognation.Can i take GATE exam to do
M.Tec.please give me details about this to my email id which i have given here avi1_indian@rediff.com or avi1indian@gmail.com

[Ashish Sharma]

Sir/mam,
i am in graduate in science maths an i want to do MBA or Equivalent post graduation in sales marketing by your distance education program, currentaly i doing job in reliance communication (sales)in Shahdol MP. reply as soon as posiible

Reg
Ashish Sharma

[muzafar aziz ganie]

sir/madam,
i did my UG degree (BIT) from MAHE under distance education durning the year 2000-2003 and i have appling for the govt. post in kashmir however the offical's says that its not a recognised Degree so could you please let me know whether the degree is recoginsed or not.

[suraj e]

sir,
i am a student of rajastan vidyapeeth deemed university.wheather B.tech courses offered by them is vaid or not.also is this course approved by AICTE/UGC or not.please clarify my doubt. By doig this can i join for higher studies namely Mtech in regular universities.

[suraj]

please reply as soon as possible

[Prasad.A]

hellow sir,
my name is prasad,i am finished my MSC(IT).I am studied in CENTER FOR INFORMATION
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY(CIST) approved to UNIVERSITY OF MYSORE.I want to know whether this course(MSC)has AICTE or UGC recognation.Can i take GATE exam to do
M.Tec.please give me details about this to my email id which i have given here prasadaramu@gmail.com

[RAJA RAMEEZ DAR]

DEAR SIR,
i want to know the difference between the deemed and private universities and i want to know abt UGC..its definition and its aims and objectives...please send me replay.

[RAJA RAMEEZ DAR]

DEAR SIR,
i want to know the difference between the deemed and private universities and i want to know abt UGC..its definition and its aims and objectives...please send me replay.

[Suraj prakash]

sir, this is suraj i took admission in mahanjana law college ,mysore .
earlier during the admission time they told me that the medium of instruction would be basically english and i am from nothern side and to cope up with my studies in the local language(kanada) was next to impossible for me ,even the infrastructure was not upto the mark for the professional student, so i left that college i also paid 9000 rs as amount of fees to that college after when i left that college they denied to refund my tution fees .

so what should i do , can i file a suit against that college regarding refund of my fees .please help me by giving your opinion .
sir kindly sort out this matter a bit early so that i can take action without any fail.
thanking you .

In Anticipation

suraj prakash

[sagar patel]

sir,
please help me iam doing B.B.A and my second semester result is bad but iam sure that i have done my papers very well and iam sure my answer sheets are not checked properly.please help me sir iam very upset and mentally disturb these times,please tell me what leagle action i can take against university.my university is rani durgavati vishwvidhlaya,(M.P)
please sir help me as soon as posible.

[Sourabh]

Sir,

when we take admission in management institute and leave just after 8 Days due to deficient services provided by the institute, what should we do, to get refund.

[kajal shah]

Respected sir,
Kajal here..I am writing u this letter regarding the non payment of salary. I have done my ECC course.I started working with Balmohan vidhya mandir school as a Phonics teacher. Everything was going good for some months but suddenly they refused to pay us the salary for 3 months. Saying they needed some letter.please help me to resolve my query...waiting for your reply
thanking you,
yours faithfully,
kajal shah

[Dhruba]

my name is Dhruba,i am finished my MSC(IT).I am studied in sikkim manipal university (Distance) .I want to know whether this course(MSC)has AICTE or UGC recognation.Can i take GATE exam to do