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Court annuls key provisions of Kerala professional colleges Act

Staff Reporter

"Government appeared to be in extreme hurry in bringing in the Act"

Kochi: A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Thursday declared invalid Sections 3, 7, 8(b) and (c) and 10 of the Kerala Professional Colleges (prohibition of capitation fee, regulation of admission, fixation of non-exploitative fee and other measures to ensure equity and excellence in professional education) Act 2006.

Section 3 prescribed that the admission to all seats except Non-Resident Indian seats in all self-financing professional colleges or institutions be made through the Common Entrance Test conducted by the State.

While Section 7 enumerated the factors to be taken into consideration while fixing the fees to be charged by an unaided professional college, Section 8 (a) and (b) said about the criteria for conferring minority status on unaided minority professional colleges. Section 10 dealt with the reservation in non-minority self-financing professional colleges. The court also declared invalid Rules 10 and 11 that make provisions for freeship to 50 per cent students. The Bench of Chief Justice V.K. Bali and Justice P.R. Raman made the ruling while allowing a batch of writ petitions challenging the Act.

In its 311-page judgment, the court said the Government appeared to be in extreme hurry in bringing in the Act. It was brought in to fulfil the promise given to the people to regulate the admission to self-financing colleges. The Government had passed the Act without making any deliberations.

The court was of the opinion that self-financing educational institutions, which were imparting quality education, need to be encouraged. In fact, the State Government was unable to impart qualitative and quantitative education to all because of paucity of resources and funds.

The Bench observed that unnecessary regulation on such colleges would be counter-productive.

The court held that unaided minority or non-minority institutions had a fundamental right under Article 19(1)(g) and 30(1) of the Constitution to run educational institutions.

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