A writ petition challenging the government decision to conduct admission in all seats, including NRI and management ones, in all self-financing medical and dental colleges in the State is likely to come up before another Division Bench of the Kerala High Court, as the present Bench comprising Justice P.R. Ramachadra Menon and Justice Anil K. Narandran on Thursday recused itself from hearing the petition.
The petition was filed by the Kerala Christian Professional College Managements’ Federation and other self-financing medical and dental colleges. A petition was also filed by the Muslim Educational Society (MES) against the government decision.
The petitioner termed as illegal the August 20 government order asking the Commissioner for Entrance Examination to conduct admission to all seats in the self-financing medical and dental colleges. The government order took the decision on the basis of a Central government’s directive. However, in a letter addressed to the State government, the Central government had not given any such directive. The letter had only opined that it was “desirable” to have a centralised allotment by the State government, the petition said.
The petitioners’ contention was that the government decision was nothing but reintroduction of Section 3 of the Kerala Professional Colleges or Institutions (Prohibition of Capitation Fee, Regulation of Admission, Fixation of Non-exploitative Fee and Other Measures to Ensure Equity and Excellence in Professional Education) Act, which had been struck down as unconstitutional by a Division Bench of the High Court. The scrapped Section 3 had provided admissions to all professional college seats other than NRI seats through centralised counselling on the basis of a Common Entrance Test conducted by the State.
The federation argued that that the colleges had already started admitting students as per an agreement entered into between the managements and the State government. The agreement was valid for 3 years from 2015.
