Tamil Nadu   

Court disallows admissions under ‘discretionary quota’

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has disallowed admissions to constituent colleges of Anna University under ‘discretionary’ Government, donors and sponsors’ quota.

Declaring that such admissions violated the fundamental right to equality, the First Bench, comprising Chief Justice A.P. Shah and Justice P. Jyothimani, however, permitted students already admitted under the quota to continue their studies.

The Bench was passing orders on a public interest litigation petition filed by S. Rajendran of Ramanathapuram district, alleging that ineligible students were being admitted to prestigious colleges under these quotas without centralised counselling. This, he said, would affect the very concept of merit-based selection.

In its counter-affidavit, Anna University denied the existence of such quotas, but said admissions were made under these categories on the basis of various Syndicate resolutions.

On Tuesday, the First Bench said the Supreme Court had held that such preferential treatment should be in consonance with Article 14 of the Constitution, and that merit alone should be the criterion.

“No guidelines or criteria were laid down for the selection for the Government quota, and it is left to individual discretions. In our opinion, it is not possible for the authorities to reserve seats in the absence of any norms or guidelines in selecting candidates under the Government quota,” the Judges observed.

All the seats are liable to be filled in accordance with the law laid down by the Supreme Court. As for the management quota in favour of donors and sponsors, the Bench said the only basis for providing such a quota was that the sponsors had given their property for establishing the colleges.

“It is not the case that the university has entered into an agreement with the sponsors.” The provision for management quota was inconsistent with the Supreme Court orders.

However, the court allowed quota for industrial consortium category saying it played a major role in the university achieving its objectives and for the development of the constituent colleges.

Admissions under this category shall not exceed 15 per cent, including the Non-Resident Indian quota, it added.

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