The Supreme Court today chided the state government for not releasing the funds for fee reimbursement to the engineering colleges in the agreed time and rejected its request for another time frame of three months to make the payments.

Responding to a petition filed by the state government seeking a deadline of three months for releasing the fee reimbursements, the highest court asked the government to submit an affidavit with in a week detailing the action taken on the court orders issued last time.

The court found fault with the argument of the government that there are some discrepancies in payment of fee reimbursements and the department has been taking time to review the payment rules and regulations. “What are you doing for the last nine months on the issue?” the court asked the government lawyer.

“Shall the students and the managements suffer for your negligence? It is not good for you to push the responsibility to the managements. Tell us why they should take loans because of the delay in payments on your part,” the SC said and asked the government not to be so irresponsible in future.