The Hindu : Front Page : High Court declines to stay order

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Tuesday, Aug 07, 2007
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High Court declines to stay order

Single judge’s interim order on fee structure in self-financing medical colleges

Kochi: A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Monday declined to stay a single judge’s interim order making the P.A. Mohammed committee fee structure applicable to the management seats in five self-financing medical colleges that had entered into a seat-sharing agreement with the Government.

The Bench of Chief Justice H.L. Dattu and Justice K.T. Sankaran refused the repeated plea of Advocate-General C.P. Sudhakara Prasad for a stay when the appeal filed by the State Government against the interim order came up for hearing. The single judge had also stayed the Government Order providing economic reservation in Government quota in these five self-financing medical colleges.

Allowing a batch of writ petitions, the single judge had ordered that the five self-financing medical college managements should fill the 15 per cent of management quota strictly in accordance with the inter se merit as per the rank s in the list published by the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations (CEE).

AG’s contention

The Advocate-General contended that the single judge went wrong in issuing a stay order. He contended that an agreement between the self-financing medical colleges and the Government was permissible as per the judgments of the Supreme Court in the Inamdar and T.M.A. Pai cases. The agreement protected the interest of students belonging to economically weaker sections. In fact, more number of seats was allowed for allocation through centralised allotment process from the rank list because of the agreement.

If the agreement had not been reached, 100 per cent seats in these five colleges would have been filled up by the managements. He contended that the Fee Regulatory Committee had decided not to enforce the fee fixed by it earlier for the current academic year in the five self-financing colleges. This being the position, the single judge went wrong in issuing the directive that the college shall not collect fee as per the agreement. The collection of lesser amount of fee from the students in the Government quota would amount to grant of scholarship. The agreement was valid.

The Court adjourned the case to August 17.

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