The Hindu : Plea in court to appoint admission panels

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Feb 14, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Plea in court to appoint admission panels

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, FEB. 13. The Association of Unaided Non-minority Engineering Colleges has moved the Madras High Court seeking for a direction to the State Government that it constitute two committees to monitor admissions under the management quota during the next academic year.

The First Bench, comprising the Chief Justice, B. Subhashan Reddy, and Justice S. Sardar Zackria Hussain, ordered notices to the Director of Technical Education, Anna University, and the Regional Director of the All-India Council for Technical Education.

The Supreme Court, in its order dated August 14, 2003, stated admissions to engineering courses should be based only on merit and that managements could select students on the basis of a common entrance test, to be supervised by a panel, whose chairman/president would be appointed by the Chief Justice. Of the two committees, one would be constituted by the Government.

One panel would supervise the common entrance examination to be conducted by the association to select students under the management quota and the other would fix the fee structure. In its present petition, the association complained that so far there was no move to appoint the panels.

On November 3, 2003, the AICTE notified that for the academic year 2004, admissions be done based only on the common entrance test conducted by the State, university or the Association of engineering colleges.

Counsel for the association, S. Prabakaran, submitted that pursuant to the notification the forum ``decided that students would be selected under the management quota only on the basis of a common entrance test.'' The forum would establish examination centres in other States too, to minimise the number of unfilled seats.

However, only the constitution of a committee as stipulated by the apex court would mark the commencement of the process, he said, and wanted the court to issue a direction to the State Government to form a committee by February 15.

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