CONSORTIUM OF SELF FINANCING PROFESSIONAL ARTS AND SCIENCE COLLEGES TAMIL NADU Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SINCE the issue involved in this batch of six writ petitions is one and the same, these writ petitions are decided by a common order.

(2.) WHAT are challenged by the un-aided minority and non-minority professional colleges and the Consortium of Self Financing Professional, Arts & Science Colleges, in this batch of six writ petitions, are, Sections 2(c)(iii), 4(1) and 5(4) of the Tamil Nadu Admission in Professional Educational Institutions Act, 2006 (Act No. 3 of 2007) ("the Act" for short) and the consequential Government Order Nos. 115 and 87 dated 25. 05. 2007 and 16. 03. 2007 respectively insofar as the former one providing for admission of students through single window system in case of five writ petitions and the latter one, in W. P. No. 21026 of 2007. Taking away the petitioner's right of admission in respect of 65% of the seats in M. B. B. S. course in its institution and also insofar as providing for admission of students to the balance 35% of the seats through a centralised counselling.

(3.) THE main grounds of attack in this batch of writ petitions are that: a. as per the judgment of the Supreme Court in Inamdar case, the Government have no right either to appropriate any quota of seats or to compel the unaided professional institutions to give up a share of the available seats to the candidates chosen by the State; b. the consensus arrived at between the Government and the private engineering colleges during the year 2006 was specifically for the academic year 2006-2007 and as such, the reference in Section 2(c)(iii) of the Act to the consensus is a mis-conception and a non-existing fact; c. Section 4(1) of the Act directing admission in unaided private educational institutions to be made on the basis of the marks obtained in the qualifying examinations, is violative of Article 30(1) in the case of minorities and Articles 19(1)(g) and 26 in case of non-minorities since the right of the unaided private educational institutions to admit students has been traced to the provisions of the Constitution and as such, the State have no jurisdiction to interfere with the said right, as held by the Supreme Court in Pai Foundation case and clarified in Inamdar case; d. Section 5(4) of the Act insofar as directing the unaided professional institutions to admit students through centralized counselling is opposed to the judgment of this Court reported in (2004) 4 MLJ 1 in and by which it was held that the direction of the permanent committee to private self-financing institutions to admit students under the Management quota through a single window system, is illegal; and e. since the process of Common Entrance Test has been done away with in view of Sections 3 and 4 of the Act, the question of centralized counselling would only be a misnomer besides constituting serious inroad into the rights of private self-financing professional colleges in the matter of admission.