A complaint has been filed against ILS Law College (ILS), Pune before the Charity Commissioner, Maharashtra by two final year law students..Mayur Garud and Krushnakant Sathe have questioned unspent funds collected as fees by the law college, and pose the question whether students are unknowingly subsidising external commercial activities undertaken by ILS.The complaint is based on financial information procured from a Right to Information application filed by the final year students. The information showed how ILS' fee collection under various heads has far exceeded actual expenditures for the academic years from 2019 to 2024. .When contacted by Bar & Bench, ILS Principal Prof Deepa Paturkar stated that she had not received a copy of the complaint, and that she would not like to comment on the issue since it is before the Charity Commissioner..What are the complaints?.ILS collects fees from students and rents out facilities like gymnasium space, swimming pool, tennis court, etc to third parties, which limits its student access to these resources. The complaint states that numerous facilities exist in a theoretical framework but are not accessible for the students' benefit..Fees collected under the heads of Training, Placement & Skills Development Fee, Debating Fee, Electronic Resources Fee, Library Fee, Legal Aid Fee, and Moot Court Fee during the academic years of 2019-2023 show huge amounts of underutilised funds..Being a government-aided institute, ILS receives financial support from the Government of Maharashtra and the University Grants Commission (UGC). However, the collection of fees under various heads remains high as per the RTI data on the revenue collected from 2019-2023..The complaint made before the Charity Commissioner also states that no fee exemptions have been given Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC) and female students..A substantial number of physical facilities were unavailable for usage by the students during the pandemic, but were still charged for in the fees for the academic years 2020-21 and 2021-22. With no expenditure, the complaint states this fee collected has become an 'unearned profit' for ILS. The complaint outlines that ILS has not maintained updated accounts of receipts and expenditures despite being required to do so as a public trust under Section 37 of the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act. The lack of transparency as to how unutilised funds are invested under the heads collected also violate Section 40 of the Act, with large surpluses that remain unaccounted for in succeeding years, it is alleged..Student demands and future course of action.The complaint has invoked the Charity Commissioner's powers to order an inquiry into the financial affairs of the public trust. It has asked for the removal of trustees on grounds of financial mismanagement and for a recovery of misused funds via legal proceedings.Other reliefs being sought are a special audit into the trust's funds, recovery of legal costs to the complainants and relief in the form of penalties..Final year ILS students tried to initiate a protest on campus, but were denied permission. In response, the college administration issued a notice discouraging students from participating in the protest."The students are hereby informed that they should not participate in this unauthorized protest. If any student participates in this unauthorized protest, appropriate legal action will be taken against that student," the notice read.
