The Hindu : Front Page : Private medical college counselling subject to outcome of appeal

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Wednesday, Jul 18, 2007
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Private medical college counselling subject to outcome of appeal

Legal Correspondent

Apex court posts hearing for July 19

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it clear that counselling for admission to the private self-financing Chettinad Medical College to be held on Thursday would be subject to the outcome of the appeal filed by the college challenging the Madras High Court ruling on sharing of seats in private medical colleges.

A three-Judge Bench comprising Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justice R.V. Raveendran and Justice Dalveer Bhandari passed the order while posting the matter for hearing to July 19.

The High Court by its common judgment on July 12 had struck down the provisions for surrendering of 65 per cent of seats to the Government by private colleges with only 35 per cent seats for the management. However, the court held that the ruling would be effective only from next year

Senior counsel Arun Jaitley, appearing for Dr. Rajah Muthiah Chettiar Charitable and Educational Trust running the Chettinad college submitted that counselling for the college was to be held on July 19.

If admissions were made on the basis of the law that had been struck down it would cause great prejudice to the appellant, he said, pleading for early hearing and stay on counselling.

Appearing for the State, senior counsel A.K. Ganguly and Advocate-General R. Viduthalai said that staying the counselling would upset the schedule.

The petitioner said the imposition of seat-sharing rule as well as the insistence on a centralised counselling or a single window system to be followed by unaided educational institutions was ultra-vires the Constitution.

The petitioner said the SLP raised important questions of law, namely, whether the High Court was correct in directing the private institutions to surrender seats after striking down the provisions; whether it had the power to postpone the operation of its order to next year; whether or not the direction to private unaided non-minority educational institutions to follow the rule of reservation for the current year was contrary to the law laid down by the apex court in the Inamdar case. The SLP sought quashing of the impugned judgment.

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