Bangalore: The Karnataka Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Determination of Fee) Bill, 2006 was passed in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday amid a walkout by the entire Opposition.

The Opposition wanted the restoration of the system of considering the marks obtained in both the pre-university examination and the Common Entrance Test (CET) for determining ranks for admission to medical and dental courses in unaided colleges.

The Bill provides for 50 per cent reservation in admissions to students belonging to the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes.

Leader of the Opposition N. Dharam Singh, M. Mallikarjun Kharge, Ramesh Kumar and Dinesh Gundu Rao (Congress), J.C. Madhuswamy (JD-U), G.V. Srirama Reddy (CPI-M) and Jayaprakash Hegde (Independent) demanded that the Bill be referred to a Joint Select Committee of the legislature.

The committee should discuss the problems that will be faced by meritorious students from rural areas seeking medical and dental seats if the rule that only marks obtained in the CET would be considered is applied.

Replying to the lengthy debate on the Bill, Higher Education Minister D.H. Shankaramurthy explained that the High Court had told the Government a year ago to ensure that only CET marks were considered for admission to medical and dental courses in unaided private professional colleges. The court had asked the Government to strictly adhere to the guidelines laid down by the Medical Council of India, he said.

Explaining the objectives of the Bill, Mr. Shankaramurthy explained the objectives of the Bill. It provided 66 per cent reservation in minority institutions for students from that community in the State.

In un-aided and non-minority institutions, 50 per cent seats would be reserved for SC/ST and OBCs from the State. The remaining seats would be treated as general category. Of these, 15 per cent would be filled under the Non-Resident Indian quota, he said.

Criteria

Criticising the Bill in the Legislative Assembly, Leader of the Opposition N. Dharam Singh said it had stipulated different criteria for admission to engineering and medical courses. While admission to engineering courses would be done on the basis of marks obtained both in the CET and the II PU examination, only CET marks would be considered for medical and dental courses.

The relevance of PU courses would be lost and injustice meted out to the students from rural areas if the medical and dental seats were filled on the basis of CET marks, he said.

Though it was true that the Medical Council of India had in its guidelines said medical seats had to be allotted only on the basis of CET marks it was not binding on the Government, Mr. Dharam Singh contended.

The Government could have filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the MCI guidelines.

The Bill had been prepared without consulting the Opposition.

Mr. Singh, however, welcomed the Bill as it provided for reservation for students belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and other backward classes to the extent of 50 per cent of seats in government, aided and unaided non-minority professional educational institutions.

The former Minister Mr. Mallikarjun Kharge said the definition of "government seats" was unclear and there was no mention of autonomous colleges.

Instead of solving the admission problem, the Bill aimed at setting up committees to regulate the admission process.

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