Counselling for engineering seats will start as scheduled, court informed

The Tamil Nadu government on Friday submitted before the Madras High Court that counselling for engineering admissions will start on June 28, as scheduled.

When a batch of writ petitions challenging the new norms of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for engineering colleges seeking renewal of approval came up for hearing before Justice V. Dhanapalan, Additional Advocate-General P. Wilson submitted that the date for counselling could not be changed. Thousands of students were involved and if the date was altered, it would create confusion.

The AICTE submitted that 309 colleges had submitted the applications according to the new regulations. The council would process them. The submission may be recorded and the court may allow the writ petitions filed by colleges, which had complied with the new regulations.

The government counsel said the very fact that 309 colleges had submitted their applications meant that they had accepted the new regulations and could be included in the counselling. On behalf of some individual colleges, it was argued that counselling could be postponed. Counsel for some private colleges said the problem arose mainly because of the AICTE issuing the circular very late.

The court said that not a single parent should be deprived of his right to select the best available college for his ward.

The matter was an all-India issue and various High Courts were seized of it. Mr.Justice Dhanapalan said he would pass final orders as early as possible.