The High Court yesterday questioned the legality of imposing 7.5% VAT (value added tax) on tuition fees at private universities.
The court asked the government to explain, in two weeks, why the decision of imposing the VAT would not be declared illegal. The Finance Ministry and National Board of Revenue (NBR) were made the respondents to the ruling.
The bench of Justice Sheikh Hassan Arif and Justice JN Dev Chowdhury issued the ruling following a writ petition filed by a teacher and two students of Daffodil University in public interest challenging the government decision.
On July 4, the NBR issued a notification imposing 7.5% VAT on tuition fees of students of private universities and medical and engineering colleges.
It was originally proposed in the FY2015-16 budget placed in parliament by Finance Minister AMA Muhith.
Since then students of private universities have been staging protest against the extra VAT on their education fees.
The petition placed to the High Court said the notification is discriminatory and illegal.
In June 2010, the NBR proposed to impose 4.5% VAT on the private university tuition fees.
However, in the face of street protest from students directly affected by the decision the revenue authority decided to stall the decision at that time.
