The Madras High Court has directed the authorities to publish the academic ranking of all affiliated self-financing engineering colleges under the Anna University of Technology (AUT), Chennai, Coimbatore, Tiruchirappalli, Tirunelveli and Madurai.
Justice N. Paul Vasanthakumar passed the order on a writ petition by N. Ramprasanth of Manachanallur village in Tiruchirappalli district. The petitioner's case was that he had completed higher secondary education in May and was aspiring to join an engineering college. He applied under the ‘single window' system of counselling, Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA.) His grievance was that before the commencement of counselling for B.E.course or till date, the rankings of self-financing colleges, particularly in terms of their academic performance, had not been disclosed. Therefore, he and other students were unable to find out which college was academically good so that they could join the institution of their choice according to their ranking and availability of seats.
He prayed the court to direct the Secretary, TNEA, to issue rankings based on academic performance of the colleges falling within its purview and regulated by the AUT at the five places and whose seats were offered under the TNEA, both in a centralised and zonal manner.
The petitioner's senior counsel R.Muthukumaraswamy submitted that even though the exact rankings in infrastructure, hostel and bus facilities could not be assessed, at least the academic performance could be disclosed by the universities as they had the details of each college's performance.
The respondents submitted there was no statutory obligation on the part of the university to announce the academic rankings of colleges.
Disposing of the petition, Mr.Justice Vasanthakumar said counsel's submission was reasonable and it was based on sound principles. The university was bound to disclose the rankings of affiliated colleges to promote students' interest. The respondents were conducting examinations. All records relating to academic performance were available with them.
The Judge permitted the petitioner to make a representation to the Controller of Examinations and the Registrar of the universities concerned.
The appropriate authorities should publish the academic rankings of all affiliated self-financing colleges under their region. It should be made public, he said.
