The Madras High Court Bench here on Wednesday directed the Anna University of Technology- Madurai, to explain by April 11 as to how it granted affiliation to a private engineering college at a “lightning speed” of two days irrespective of the expiry of cut-off date fixed by the State Government.
Justice D. Hariparanthaman passed the interim order in a writ petition filed by the secretary of Nadar Saraswathi College of Engineering and Technology at Vadupudupatti in Theni district seeking a direction to the Commissioner of Technical Education to approve the admission of 46 students in 2010-11.
On perusing the case records, the judge found that the All India Council for Technical Education had granted approval for the petitioner institution on October 5, 2010. It was followed immediately by an affiliation granted by AUT-Madurai on October 7, 2010 for the academic year 2010-11.
Such affiliation was granted despite an order passed by the Principal Secretary to Government-cum-Commissioner of Technical Education that the students should not be admitted beyond September 17, 2010. Nevertheless, the college admitted the students and filed the present writ petition.
The college secretary M. Amarnath claimed that it was one among the 12 educational institutions owned and administered by Theni Melapetai Hindu Nadar Uravinmurai, a registered society. The college was established in 2009 and it started functioning from 2010-11.
The present strength of the college was 46 students as against the sanctioned annual intake of 240 students. It was offering Bachelor of Engineering programmes in civil, mechanical, electronics and communication and computer science streams.
The Commissioner of Technical Education recently refused to approve the list of students on the ground that they were admitted beyond the cut-off date. Consequently, the university expressed its inability to permit the students to write the examinations and hence the writ petition.
