The Karnataka High Court on Monday asked the State government to instruct all 632 pre-university colleges functioning in area less than 25,000 sq ft area, to implead in a litigation related to a pre-university college in Hubli that does not have the land required as per rules.
A Division Bench comprising Justice K.L. Manjunath and Justice Ravi Malimath issued the direction in this regard while hearing a petition that said that Vidyaniketan PU College run by Chougale Education Society at Deshpande Nagar in Hubli has been functioning without proper infrastructure. Petitioners Chandrashekar M. Aramani and others in their petition filed in 2009 had questioned the permission granted to the college to function when it did not have the needed infrastructure.
The Bench issued the order following a statement filed by the PU Education Department that there are 632 colleges functioning without the infrastructure as per rules.
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The statement further indicated that while there are 33 PU colleges in Bangalore North with less than the required land as per the rule, Bangalore South has 91, Bangalore Rural 13, Bellary 88, Mysore 56, Tumkur 36, Dharwad 34, Gulbarga 46, Chitradurga 35, and Raichur 31, among others.
What the rule says
As per Section 4(2) of the Karnataka Pre-University Education (Academic, Registration, Administration and Grant-in-aid, etc) Rules 2006, the institution should acquire a minimum of 25,000 sq ft of land within a year of getting the letter of intent to start a pre-university college and to provide infrastructure as specified in the rule by dividing the 25,000 sq ft of area for various purposes as fixed in the rules.
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