NEW DELHI: The Kerala Government has suffered a setback with the Supreme Court allowing the consortium of private unaided colleges in the State to conduct a Common Entrance Test (CET) for admission to medical and engineering courses during the coming academic year.

A Bench of Justice B.N. Aggrawal, however, on Monday admitted a special leave petition (SLP) filed by the State Government challenging an order passed by the High Court which struck down certain provisions 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 as unconstitutional.

State's plea

But the Bench refused to entertain a plea of senior counsel K.K. Venugopal appearing for the State Government to stay the Kerala High Court order quashing the Act and restrain self-financing colleges from conducting the CET.

The State Government had come on an appeal against the High Court order dated January 1, 2007 which quashed certain provisions of the Act as being ``unconstitutional.''

The impugned Act empowered the State to have control over all professional private/minority educational institutions for the purpose of conducting admissions to professional colleges.

Capitation fee

The State took the plea that the Act was passed with a view to ending the menace of huge capitation fee reportedly being collected by private educational institutions from candidates during interviews. It was complained by the State Government that even after students succeeded in their written tests, managements were collecting huge capitation fee ranging from Rs.25 lakh to Rs.35 lakh from the candidates at the time of interviews.

On an appeal from the consortium of private colleges, the Kerala High Court had struck down the Act as unconstitutional on the ground that it violated the fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 19 (1)(g), 26(a), and 30 to the managements to administer their institutions. — PTI

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