HC shocked over maritime academy's offer to 'book' seats

Updated on: Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The Madras High Court expressed shock over an advertisement by International Maritime Academy (IMA), a private institute here, offering to 'book' seats for candidates who send a DD for Rs 25,000 along with application, saying prima facie it appeared illegal.

The court made the remarks while rapping the Maritime Institutes Association for abusing the court's jurisdiction to promote the private interest of its President, who runs the IMA, by filing a PIL against a notification by Indian Maritime University on admissions norms.

A bench comprising Chief Justice M.Y.Eqbal and Justice T S Sivagnanam dismissed the petition as "not to be entertained".

"From a perusal of the said advertisement, we are shocked to see that candidates who want to reserve/book a seat could do so by sending their application along with a demand draft for Rs.25,000. We fail to understand how a seat could be booked without there being a selection process in which a candidate's merit has to be assessed," the judges said.

"Thus, prima facie, it appears that the procedure adopted by the IMA is illegal", the court said.

Deprecating the manner in which the petition had been filed as a Public Interest Litigation, the judges said "the petitioner has in fact abused the jurisdiction of this court by resorting to litigation with a view to promoting private interest of one particular inpidual who happens to be the Association President and also running the IMA.

The association represented by its Secretary C V Jothikumar alleged that the Indian Maritime University in order to favour certain institutes had given unfettered discretion to them and introduced certain clauses in the notification on admission norms and sought their quashing.

The university objected to the maintainability of the PIL contending it had been filed to promote the private interest of the association President with certain oblique motive.

The Bench also held that the claim by the petitioner to be an association of maritime institutes with 24 members was false.It was admitted by the senior counsel for the petitioner that except J.Senthilkumar, the association President, no other member has a maritime institute, it said.

Besides, the court found that Senthilkumar had been given two positions in the association President and Director, and said the petitioner had also mislead the Registrar of Societies while registering their Association.

The court said the petition appeared to be have been triggered by the university's rejection of approval for a diploma in nautical sciences offered by the IMA since it lacked the requisite infrastructural facility.

It also said an advertisement issued by the academy that the DNS exams would be conducted by Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli, appeared to be 'misleading'.

Therefore, "primafacie it appears that all is not well with the International Maritime Academy. In any event, we do not wish to go further into the said aspect and it is for the competent authorities under the Indian Maritime University Act to look into the matter and do the needful in accordance with law," the Judges said

HC shocked over maritime academy's offer to 'book' seats

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