The Hindu : National : Safeguard rights of poor students: Elders

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 17, 2005

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National

Safeguard rights of poor students: Elders

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Several members in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday demanded legislation to nullify the Supreme Court order last week on reservation in private unaided colleges.

P. G. Narayanan (AIADMK) said the order indicated that State Governments do not have any more power to regulate admissions in unaided private colleges. ``We have to safeguard the rights of the downtrodden people. The Tamil Nadu Government was keen to render social justice to socially backward classes. The Centre should immediately review the position,'' he demanded.

Ravula Chandra Sekar Reddy (Telugu Desam Party) said there were many minority institutions in the southern States and it was the duty of the Government to bring forward legislation during the current session to ``safeguard'' the rights of students from the depressed classes. The demand for an ordinance was voiced by several other members including G. K. Vasan, P.J. Kurien, Vayalar Ravi and V. Narayanaswamy (all Congress) and Sharad Yadav (Janata Dal-United). Some Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members also associated themselves with the general sentiment.

The Lok Sabha was relatively subdued on the issue after Speaker Somnath Chatterjee said he had admitted a notice for a calling attention motion on the issue and it would be taken up for discussion on Wednesday.

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