The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Common entrance test marks must for admission: High Court

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 16, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Common entrance test marks must for admission: High Court

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, SEPT. 15. The Madras High Court has declined to permit unaided engineering colleges to admit students, who have not written the common entrance test conducted by the Government or the association of private colleges.

Justice A.K. Rajan, dismissing a writ petition filed by the All-India Medical and Engineering Colleges Association, said, "those students cannot be admitted since they did not write the CET, which is made a condition by the Supreme Court."

The association president, T.D. Naidu, prayed for a direction to the Higher Education department and the Technical Education Director to approve the list of students who obtained eligible marks in the qualifying examinations and were admitted to various colleges in 2004-05.

Rejecting the prayer, Mr. Justice Rajan cited an earlier Division Bench order, which held that "individual colleges, whether unaided or aided, minority or non-minority, can admit students only the basis of marks obtained in the qualifying examination and the CET conducted either by the Government or by the consortium (of private colleges) and that merit cannot be ignored."

On the petitioner's plea that there was no guarantee the State would fill up the entire government quota seats in unaided colleges through the single window system, the judge said less than 50 per cent of government quota seats were filled in 88 colleges, with 50 colleges filling only 25 per cent of the Government quota seats. "Even under these circumstances, as per the decisions of the Supreme Court, individual colleges cannot admit students who did not appear in any of the CETs. Admission to engineering colleges cannot be done only on the basis of marks obtained in the qualifying examinations," he said.

`Serious situation'

Describing the situation as "very serious," Mr. Justice Rajan said, "these 88 colleges face closure in view of the restriction."

He observed that when the Supreme Court laid down conditions such as the SWS and the CET, the demand for engineering seats was more. "Now there is a different situation. More seats are available than the demand. Though many students satisfy the All-India Council for Technical Education's (AICTE) stipulation that students obtain more than 50 per cent marks in the qualifying examination for admission to engineering courses, they cannot be admitted because of the observation made by the Supreme Court. Nearly 25,000 seats in engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu are likely to remain vacant in 2004-05."

However, he said, "filling up these seats based on marks obtained in the qualifying examinations alone may not be violative of the AICTE norms, but this court cannot permit such admissions so long as the observations of the Supreme Court in the T.M.A. Pai and Islamic Academy cases hold the field."

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