High Court questions VAT on private universities

The High Court today questioned the legality of a government decision to impose 7.5 percent VAT on the tuition fee of students of private universities.

The court issued a rule upon the authorities concerned of the government to explain in three weeks as to why the decision would not be declared illegal.

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) on July 4 issued a notification imposing 7.5 percent vat on tuition fee of students of the private medical and engineering universities.

It was originally proposed in the near Tk 3 trillion budget for 2015-16 fiscal placed in the parliament by Finance Minister AMA Muhith.

Today the HC bench of Justice Sheikh Hassan Arif and Justice JN Dev Chowdhury issued the rule following a writ petition filed by a teacher and two students of Daffodil University.

They submitted the petition last week challenging the NBR notification saying that the notification is discriminatory and illegal as such VAT was not imposed of the tuition fees of the students of public universities and institutions.

Every student has equal rights to get education as per the constitution, they said in the petition.