In what could be the first step towards clearing up the admission mess in private medical colleges, the Centre today told the Supreme Court that it was willing to conduct a combined all-India examination for selection of students to government and private medical and dental colleges in different states.Additional Solicitor General R N Trivedi presented the government’s arguments to a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court which is hearing the interpretation of its earlier ruling after the nationwide controversy over the Government’s regulatory role in admissions and fees of private and minority professional colleges.Trivedi said the numerous entrance tests held by different state governments and private colleges were putting students through hardship: they have to buy separate application forms for each exam, the cost of which is anywhere from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000. Moreover, the dates of entrances of different colleges often clashed, he pointed out. To overcome this and to provide a uniform time-schedule, the Central government is willing to conduct, through a suitable agency, a combined all-India exam, he added.‘‘Competing fundamental rights, viz., those of the student guaranteed by Articles 14 and 19 of the Constitution and those of the minority institutions have to be balanced so as to ensure that the qualitative rights of both are respected and implemented,’’ Trivedi said.He said the combined entrance test would include admissions for the management quota seats also. The procedure could be applied for filling up NRI quota also. For this, examination could be held in select centres abroad where sizable number of students can take the test, he felt.Moreover, ‘‘such a uniform/centralised test to determine the merit of the students, inter alia, for management seats does not erode the autonomy of the minority institutions,’’ he said. ‘‘It would only be regulatory in nature and would not interfere with the rights of the minority institutions in any away.’’Attorney General Soli Sorabjee agreed that the un-aided minority educational institutions have a right to frame a fee structure and to generate some surplus for future development But, the fee cannot amount to capitation fee, he contended.Sorabjee said that fundamental rights, which include minority rights cannot be subordinated to or over-ridden by considerations of administrative convenience.He drew the attention of the court to the para of the TMA Pai judgement which said, ‘It would be unfair to apply the same rules and regulations to both aided and un-aided professional institutions. In the case of un-aided institutions, the fee to be charged should be left to the institution, he felt. However, the right is not absolute, he added.Moreover, an un-aided minority educational institution can hold separate entrance tests, but the procedure must be fair and transparent, he said.
