The Hindu : National : Notice to Centre, UGC and AICTE on common entrance test

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Oct 16, 2004

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National

Notice to Centre, UGC and AICTE on common entrance test

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, OCT. 15. The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Centre, the University Grants Commission and the All-India Council for Technical Education on a petition to conduct an All-India Common Entrance Test (AICET) for admission under the "management quota" in medicine, engineering and other professional courses.

A Bench of Justice Y.K. Sabharwal and Justice D.M. Dharmadhikari issued notice after senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the petitioner, the All-India Medical and Engineering Colleges Association, brought to the notice of the court that as on September 30, the last day for completion of admissions, over five lakh seats in medicine, engineering, dental, pharmacy and other undergraduate professional courses remained vacant in the absence of a national-level entrance test.

He said that at least next year, the Association must be permitted to conduct the AICET and pleaded for issuing notice to the Centre and other authorities. The Bench agreed and issued the notice.

The Association president, T.D. Naidu, in an additional affidavit explained that this year under the AIEEE, only 17 National Institutes of Technology, 24 Deemed Universities and three other institutions participated from Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and Uttaranchal for "all seats" and only "open seats" in Haryana, Rajasthan and Orissa.

Vacant seats

None of the over 1,000 members of the petitioner association participated in the AIEEE as seats under the management quota in these colleges could not be filled through the AIEE. The affidavit said that over five lakh seats in various courses continued to be vacant for the current academic year under the management quota as they could not be filled with the State-level test and the AIEEE was not a solution to solve this problem of huge vacancies of seats. The petitioner, therefore, sought a direction to permit the Association to conduct the AICET for the seats of the member colleges under the management quota at least for 2005-2006 considering the fact that a large number of seats remained vacant this year causing hardship to private self-financing colleges.

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