NUST has been ordered by the President to refund an amount of $11,270 because it engaged in poor administration by wrongfully keeping the admission fees of a former student.
The National University of Science and Technology (NUST) has been ordered by the President to refund an amount of $11,270 because it engaged in poor administration by wrongfully keeping the admission fees of a former student who left the university 15 years ago and enrolled at another institution.
He claimed that because NUST was created by and under the control of the federal government, it qualified as a government “agency,” provided services to the public rather than being a private business, and that taking a student’s tuition money amounted to abuse and fraud.
When a student was accepted to NUST in 2022 and his father paid the admission fee of $11,420, the president issued instructions in a case that had been going on for 15 years. Due to its Refund Policy, NUST, however, rejected his request for a refund.
In response to a complaint made in 2008, Wafaqi Mohtasib ordered NUST to refund the money. As a result of failing to demonstrate any financial loss as a result of the student’s decision to enrol at another university, NUST’s representation was rejected on the grounds that it did not explain how its policy was legal.
NUST submitted a writ petition to the Islamabad High Court in 2015 asking for the Mohtasib to render a reasoned decision on whether NUST had engaged in any instances of poor administration and whether it was a “Agency” of the Government.
The president claimed that NUST’s choice to refuse a refund in this instance amounted to “forfeiture and confiscation” and that charging two dues for one seat constituted abuse and malpractice.
The admission was neither final nor matured, and NUST suffered no financial loss in the present case, he claimed, so the student deserved to receive a refund of his fees even though the university’s prospectus had stated that tuition fees and Development Fund would not be refunded to applicants.
According to the president, no provision of the NUST prospectus may go beyond the scope allowed by law, and neither a policy nor standard operating procedures (SOPs) may supersede the provisions of the Pakistani Constitution, specifically Articles 3 and 4, which deal with the abolition of exploitation and the rights of individuals.
He continued by saying that because NUST had engaged in poor administration, it was advised to refund all of the student’s fees with the exception of the $150 admission fee because NUST had started a process that involved costs that were legally subject to deduction.
NUST was created by an Act of Parliament known as the National University of Science and Technology Act, 1997, with the President of Pakistan serving as Patron-in-Chief and the Prime Minister of Pakistan serving as Chancellor.
It was determined that NUST met the criteria for an “Agency” as defined in Article 2(1) of the Establishment Act. The President instructed NUST to pay the money that had been seized while only deducting $150 from the $11,420 that had been deposited in total.