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| Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Self-financing colleges withdraw petitions
- Bench dismissed SLPs after recording submissions
- Colleges cannot file other appeal for same relief
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday cleared hurdles to admission
of students to engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu by dismissing
a batch of petitions filed by self-financing engineering colleges
challenging the Government directive to surrender 65 per cent
of the seats to it.
When the petitions came up for hearing before a Bench of Justice
B.N. Agrawal and Justice P.P. Naolekar, counsel A. Mariarputham,
appearing for most of the colleges, sprang a surprise by informing
the court that he had instructions to withdraw the petitions.
When the Bench sought to know the reason, counsel said he had
submitted a letter to the Registry seeking withdrawal of the
petitions.
The letter, dated July 27, said counselling had progressed substantially
and a large number of students allotted to a number of unaided
engineering colleges, including those run by the petitioners.
Further allotments
Further allotments would be made till July 30. Keeping in mind
the larger interests of the students concerned, the petitioners
had decided to withdraw the special leave petitions, without
prejudice to the contentions raised in the SLPs.
Recording the submission, the Bench dismissed the SLPs, making
it clear to counsel that the colleges would not be allowed to
file any other appeal for the same relief.
The petitioners in their SLPs stated that they had not given
any undertaking to the Government on seat sharing. They refuted
the Government’s contention that 160 colleges had given
their consent. Only 64 colleges had agreed for the seat sharing
arrangement. This could not be put against those who had not
signed it.
Once a law had been held unconstitutional, the High Court could
not make it operative only from next year and direct continuance
of admissions on the basis of the same law, they said, and sought
a direction to quash the impugned judgment.
The appeal filed by the State challenging the same judgment
is still pending as the Bench had issued notice to the consortium/colleges
concerned.
Courtesy: The Hindu
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