The Hindu : Front Page : Supreme Court moved on CET

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 30, 2005

Front Page

Front Page

Supreme Court moved on CET

J. Venkatesan

Common entrance test places poor students at a disadvantage: Government

NEW DELHI: The Tamil Nadu Government on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court against a Madras High Court judgment setting aside a Government Order scrapping the common entrance test (CET) for admission to medical, engineering and other professional courses from the academic year 2005-2006.

In its special leave petition filed through counsel R. Ayyam Perumal, the Government justified the abolition of the CET and the improvement examination. The SLP is likely to come up for hearing before a vacation Bench of Justice D.M. Dharmadhikari and Justice S.H. Kapadia on July 4. Since a bunch of caveats have been filed by students (petitioners before the High Court), they would also be heard. The SLP stated that the June 9 G.O. was necessitated for two reasons: the CET, held since 1984-1985, worked to the disadvantage of poor students, both from rural and urban areas, as they could not afford specialised coaching. But affluent students in urban areas had the advantage of intense coaching from coaching centres. The improvement examination permitted by the Government as a concession was also found to operate against the interest of poor students from rural and urban areas, as they could not afford to spend one more academic year on improving their performance after passing the 10+2 examination.

The State Government said that its latest policy of judging the relative merits of students with reference to the qualifying examination was fair, just and reasonable and ensured equal opportunity.

Assailing the impugned judgment, the SLP said the Regulations of the Medical Council of India/All-India Council for Technical Education prescribing CETs for admissions could not prevail over the law declared by the apex court in the T.M.A. Pai case, which permitted other methods of computing equivalence between different kinds of qualifications.

As per the Regulations, the CET was mandatory only in cases of institutions of all-India character but not so in States having more than one examining body conducting the qualifying examination (such as the State Board and Central Board of Secondary Education).

Referring to the 1997 apex court ruling in the Srivastava vs. State of Madhya Pradesh case relied on by the High Court, the SLP said the T.M.A. Pai judgment, which came subsequently, would prevail over the earlier ruling.

`Perpetuating discrimination'

It said the effect of the High Court judgment was to perpetuate the discrimination brought about by the mechanical interpretation of the Regulations of MCI/AICTE to the admitted disadvantage of the rural poor students. Further the regulations only prescribed minimum standards and it was always open to the State to adopt better standards. The matter involved substantial questions of law of great public importance, the SLP said, and sought quashing of the impugned judgment.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page

News Update

Stories in this Section