The High Court declared on Tuesday that the new rules framed by the State government to streamline admissions into the management quota seats in private engineering colleges through the online process cannot be made applicable for the current academic year.
Setback to Govt.
The setback to the government came through interim orders passed by a Division Bench comprising acting Chief Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Vilas V. Afuzulpurkar in a batch of writ petitions filed by managements of various engineering colleges. The writ petitioners were challenging the constitutional validity of Government Orders No. 66 and 67. Contending that the government had no power to issue such directions, they further stated that these statutory rules had not been notified as per law.
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Clarification sought
When the cases were called, the Bench wanted the government to clarify whether the statutory rules had been notified or not.
It reminded the government that the rules could not be changed mid-stream once the admission process had been set into motion.
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The Bench declared that these two Government Orders could not be enforced during this academic year. It may be recalled that the two GOs were released with much fanfare with the government’s claim that it was ushering in transparency in filling seats in the management quota.
Declaring that the constitutional validity of the two GOs would be adjudicated in the final hearing, the Bench directed the government to file counter affidavits and posted the 30 writ petitions after six weeks.