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| Wednesday, Apr 11, 2007
Abolition of CET justified, Government tells court
Professional Educational Institutions Act not at odds with
Central regulations
- "Counter-affidavit by Council of Architecture
against CET abolition without authorisation"
- The benefits of the normalisation method will not reach all: petitioner- students
Chennai: Rejecting the argument that the Common Entrance Test
was the only tool for uniform evaluation of students, the Tamil
Nadu Government told the Madras High Court on Tuesday that normalisation
of marks was a credible alternative.
Justifying the abolition of the test for professional course
admissions and the introduction of normalisation scheme, Advocate-General
R. Viduthalai argued that if emphasis was laid on the uniform
evaluation, the Tamil Nadu Admission in Professional Educational
Institutions Act 2006 was a valid enactment.
Maintaining that the Act was neither repugnant to nor inconsistent
with the Central regulations, he said the overlapping area was
still available for the State Government to make necessary legislation.
The CET was just one of the tools to achieve the end. The presence
of a Central legislation would not ipso facto disentitle the
State Government from enacting an Act of its own. When the Bench
of Justice Prafulla Kumar Misra and Justice J.A.K. Sampath Kumar
posed a pointed query as to how long would authorities need
to organise the CET, Mr. Viduthalai said the process normally
took 45 days.
Additional Advocate-General N. Kannadasan submitted that unlike
two earlier attempts to abolish the CET, the Government had
appointed a committee of experts and accepted its recommendation
to abolish the test and introduce the normalisation scheme.
The committee issued advertisements, invited suggestions and
held public hearings.
Mr. Kannadasan said authorities had been asked to apply the
normalisation method to the last two batches of students to
demonstrate the fact that it was as effective as the CET. The
normalisation scheme could be put to use on a trial basis; if
need be, it could be reviewed a year later. Senior counsel R.
Gandhi, representing students opposed to the CET, said the State
had legislative competence and that the impugned Act was not
in violation of any Central provision.
Additional Solicitor-General V.T. Gopalan, taking exception
to a counter-affidavit filed by the Council of Architecture
against the abolition of the CET, said it had been filed without
authorisation. The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development
would initiate action against the advocate concerned, he said.
A statutory authority functioning under the Ministry could not
take a stand different from that of the Centre.
Earlier, K.M. Vijayan, senior counsel for petitioner-students,
argued that the normalisation scheme had pitfalls in that its
benefits would not reach all students.
As for the constitution of a committee of experts, Mr. Vijayan
said it was not a statutory creation. He, however, said it was
a situation wherein a State law had obtained Presidential assent
though it was not consistent with the Central legislation.
Courtesy: The Hindu
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