DR DHANANJAYA Y CHANDRACHUD, J. - (1.) Leave granted.
(2.) This appeal arises from an order of a Division Bench of the High Court of Orissa dated 21 January 2021. The High Court has allowed a writ petition filed by the first respondent allowing institutions imparting education to grant admission to the students for the B.Tech (Engineering) degree course for academic session 2020-21 on the basis of the marks obtained in the qualifying examinations. This is purportedly in relaxation of a statutory requirement that all admissions have to be based on a centralized entrance test. In the State of Orissa, there is a legislation called the Odisha Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Fixation of Fees) Act 2007. Section 3 of the 2007 Act contains the following provision: "3. (1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, admission of students in all private professional educational institutions, Govt. institutions and sponsored institutions to all seats including lateral entry seats, shall be made through Entrance Test(s) approved by the Government followed by centralized counselling in order of merit, in accordance with such procedure as recommended by the Policy Planning Body and approved by the Government. (2) After vacancy round of Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE)/ Diploma Entrance Test (DET) Counselling, i.e. after minimum of two rounds of Centralized Counselling, the modalities shall be decided by the Government from time to time for filling up of the vacant seats taking candidates from the Entrance Test(s) approved by the Government on merit basis of all the Technical and Professional Institutes under the supervision of the OJEE/DET Committee. The seats to which candidates could not be sponsored due to dearth of choice and the seats remained vacant due to non-reporting cases 2nd round of Centralized Counselling shall be considered as vacant seats against which the College can admit students following the modalities fixed by the Government. In any case, the reported cases shall not be given further opportunity to participate in the admission process meant for filling up of vacancies at Institution level".
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