Admission to undergraduate courses was put on hold at Scottish Church College on Tuesday after protests by the Trinamul-backed students' union against a dress code advisory the minority institution had posted on its website.

Minority institutions in India enjoy a constitutional right to follow their own norms. The Constitution guarantees them rights such as imposing a dress code or introducing a new fee structure.

The student union of the 185-year-old college, controlled by the Church of North India (CNI), has been staging demonstrations ever since the advisory was posted on the college website on Saturday.

The college withdrew the advisory on Monday morning but the union intensified its protest on Tuesday, the first day of counselling, stalling admissions and leaving several students harassed.

The college authorities had posted a five-point advisory on its website on Saturday that said "only skirts well below knee length, without slits are allowed... any kind of captions or writings on shirts/T-shirtsops must be avoided".

Scottish Church is not the first institution to issue such an advisory. St. Xavier's College has been following a dress code for years. The advisory at Xavier's says a girl student can't wear capris to college, while boys are not allowed to wear round neck T-shirts.

Ramakrishna Mission colleges, too, have their own dress codes. At Narendrapur, students are required to wear white shirts and white trousers.

At Scottish Church, the student union's demands include revocation of a fee hike and resignation of rector John Abraham, who it has accused of running the institution in an "autocratic fashion".

"What started with the dress code has taken a turn for the worse with students now demanding that we withdraw the fees that were introduced in consultation with the students' union," said rector Abraham.

The college has introduced a refundable security deposit in all subjects to raise money for paying the honorarium of contractual teachers and non-teaching staff.

The security deposit for lab-based subjects is Rs 6,000 and for the other subjects, Rs 3,000.

The college has also raised the lab fees from Rs 300 to Rs 800.

Abraham got in touch with the education minister, Partha Chatterjee, on Tuesday. The minister has asked the college to resume admissions from Wednesday.

"Minister Partha Chatterjee has promised us that there won't be any disruption to the admission process, so we have decided to go ahead with admissions from Wednesday," Abraham said.

But several students, many of who had travelled from far, had to return disappointed on Tuesday.

Student leaders, however, blamed the rector for postponing admission.

"We had never agreed to the new fee structure. Although we had been invited to the fee revision meeting, we were merely informed about the new fees," said Sayak Banerjee, the general secretary of the union.