The Supreme Court has issued notice to the Centre and a Tamil Nadu medical college on a petition filed by a graduate challenging the college’s instruction requiring her to pay her fees again to have her certificates released.In fact, the Rs 1.13 crore in fees she paid to the Chettinad Academy of Research and Education was seized from the college by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) as proceeds of crime after some of her family members were arrested in a case registered in December 2021 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) over alleged Maoist links.A Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta, on September 3, asked the Centre and the medical college to spell out their respective stands on the petition and posted the matter for hearing on October 13.She has challenged a June 2026 order of a Division Bench of the Madras High Court, which held that although educational certificates cannot ordinarily be withheld as security for unpaid fees, the circumstances were different because the college had been deprived of the amount following the NIA seizure. The High Court asked her to seek the release of the seized money from the NIA Special Court.However, the petitioner contended that she could not be denied her MBBS certificate as she was not an accused in the UAPA case. She submitted that she had already paid the fees and that merely because the amount was subsequently seized by an investigating agency, she could not be forced to pay the entire amount again.The petitioner, who joined the MBBS course at the Chettinad Academy of Research and Education in 2017, paid Rs. 1.13 crore in fees through banking channels and completed the MBBS course as well as her compulsory rotating medical internship.However, the college refused to hand over her certificates after the NIA seized the entire fee amount as proceeds of crime following the registration of a UAPA case against her family members.