Court grants interim stay of new AICTE norms for State

Updated on: Monday, July 04, 2011

The Madras High Court has granted an interim stay of the new regulations of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) as far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, prescribing the minimum qualifying marks for admission to engineering colleges in the State.

The court passed the order on an affidavit filed by the Higher Education Department, challenging the new regulations.

For the year 2011-12, the council had published the entry-level qualification in the approval process handbook prescribing minimum 45 per cent marks in the case of candidates belonging to reserved categories and 50 per cent for others in the higher secondary examinations.

The State government had fixed 35 per cent marks for SC Arunthathiyars and SC/ST, 45 per cent for backward classes, 40 per cent for most backward classes/de-notified communities and 50 per cent for other communities.

The government submitted that by virtue of the impugned regulations, the number of vacancies in engineering colleges was bound to increase thereby denying admission to a large number of students who would have otherwise joined the courses.

The government prayed the court for a direction to call for the records of the AICTE in respect of the impugned regulations and to quash the same and consequently direct the respondents to grant admission to all students as per the norms fixed by the Tamil Nadu government. The interim prayer was to stay the impugned regulations.

Advocate-General A. Navaneethakrishnan argued that the impugned regulations were against Article 14 of the Constitution. The court granted the interim stay. It also permitted the Tamil Nadu government to follow the existing regulations with regard to the qualifying marks.

According to an official release, as the new regulations would affect rural and poor students and went against social justice, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa presented a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on June 14 stating that the norms prescribed by the Tamil Nadu Government should be followed. As no decision was taken by the Centre or the AICTE and as admissions to engineering colleges should begin, the Chief Minister held discussions with officials. Following this, the State government moved the High Court.

Court grants interim stay of new AICTE norms for State

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