HC stays Engineering admissions

MUMBAI, June 27: Students who turned up at various engineering colleges in the city to check the merit for admissions had to return home dis...

MUMBAI, June 27: Students who turned up at various engineering colleges in the city to check the merit for admissions had to return home disappointed as the lists could not be put because of a stay ordered by the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court on Friday.

The bench will now consider, on Monday, two crucial aspects of the rules of admission to engineering colleges when it resumes hearing of a public interest litigation by freedom fighter Vijendra Kabra.

The bench, which on Friday stayed the publication of the merit list for engineering admissions till June 29, will consider the petitioner8217;s main contention that there should be an equitable distribution of seats in professional courses among all the regions of the State. This would mean that each of the six major university areas of the State should each get 16 per cent of the total seats.

The second aspect, which actually has been added to the petition very recently, challenges the restriction of three choices put on students applying to the 30per cent State-level quota of engineering courses.

The petition alleges that the three-choices rule turns the whole process of admission in the 30 per cent category into a lottery and there was no reason why they should not be allowed unlimited choice as offered by IITs.

Seats in engineering colleges have been divided into the 30 per cent quota and the 70 per cent quota. While admission to 70 per cent of seats of any college, government or private, is restricted to students who have taken the qualifying examination from the respective university to which the college is affiliated, the rest of the seats are thrown open to students from all regions of the state.

Admission to 70 per cent quota is granted on the basis of region-wise merit list and the student at the time of taking admission is aware of all the available seats through a computer chart displayed at every admission centre. He can then chose any one.

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However, for the 30 per cent quota seats, there is no common merit list. The merit listactually gets scattered into college-wise groups on the basis of the choices given by the student. If the students choose they can skip filling up the choices in the 30 per cent seats and opt only for the 70 per cent quota.

The counsel for the petitioner, Pradeep Deshmukh, argued that if the government publishes the percentage marks obtained at the HSC exam by students admitted through the 30 per cent quota the previous year, it would reveal that the rule of merit has been defied. While students with better percentage get left out those with lesser marks manage to get hold of good courses in the game of probability that dominates admission in this category.

Deshmukh pointed out that there were as many as 18 courses which were not taught in the colleges located in Marathwada. Thus while a student in Pune and Mumbai would be able to exercise his choice for one of these 18 courses in the 70 per cent and 30 per cent quotas, students in Marathwada would be able to do so only in the 30 per cent quota.