New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to stay the operation of the Madras High Court judgment upholding the abolition of the Common Entrance Test (CET) for admission to professional courses in Tamil Nadu.

Considering the fact that admission process had already commenced, a Bench of Justice B.N. Agrawal and Justice P.P. Naolekar said, "We cannot interfere this year. Admissions will have to proceed only on the basis of marks in the higher secondary examination."

The Bench after hearing senior counsel Arun Jaitley, Ranjit Kumar and Kylasnath Pillai, appearing for the petitioner issued notice to the State Government. The Bench gave liberty to the petitioner to approach the Chief Justice of India for listing the matter before the vacation Bench if he wanted early disposal of the case.

Mr. Jaitley argued that the State had no power to enact the law abolishing the CET as only the Centre could bring such a law. Praying for interim stay of the operation of the impugned judgment, he wanted a direction to the State to conduct the CET immediately.

Senior counsel, T.R. Andhyarujina, submitted that the law was enacted after wide consultations with the Medical and Dental Councils of India, the AICTE, the Union Human Resource Development Ministry and it received Presidential assent.

The admission process had begun with the issue of application forms and any interference at this stage would be harmful to the interests of students.

The Bench agreed with the submissions and refused to stay the impugned judgment.

The Tamil Nadu Admission in Professional Educational Institutions Act 2006 envisages admission to all professional courses such as medicine and engineering for 2007-08 on the basis of marks obtained by students in the higher secondary examination. On April 27, the High Court dismissed a batch of petitions challenging this law. The present special leave petition by Minor A.S. Prabhu is directed against this judgment.

The SLP said the Supreme Court had conclusively decided that to determine uniform standards in education, admission through CET was the best method, which had been approved by the Medical Council of India and the All India Council for Technical Education.

It said, "The notification reveals the unscientific manner in which admissions are sought to be made even on random allotment, which is unheard of in the counselling and admission parlance... "

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