HC quashes 4 Sections of Self-Financing Colleges Act

Kochi, Jan 4 (UNI) In a major setback to the State Government, the Kerala High Court today quashed four important Sections in the Kerala Self-Financing Professional Colleges Act, 2006 terming them ''invalid and unconstitutional.'' A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice V K Bali and Mr Justice P R Raman in their judgement termed Sections 3, 7, 8 and 10, relating to admission procedures, fees structure, power of government to decide minority status of the colleges and reservation to various communities, including SC/ST as ''invalid and unconstitutional.'' The Court contended that the provisions of the Act were opposed to Article 14 of the Constitution and would also violate the fundamental rights of the petitioners under Article 19(1)(g), 26(a) and 30 of the Constitution.

The Court further observed that the government was in a haste to enact the Kerala Self-Financing Professional Colleges (prohibition of capitation fee, regulation of admission, fixation of non-exploitative fee and other measures to ensure equity and excellence in professional education) Bill which came into effect on August 15, 2006.

The admission procedure as enumerated in Section 3 of the Act was a complete takeover of the admission process thus completely annihilating the rights of the institutions and was violative of Article 19 (1)(g) and 30 (1) of the Constitution.

Regarding Section 7 of the Act, which deals with fixing the fee structure in profesional colleges, the Court observed that it infringed upon the rights of the management in determining the fee structure and was unconstitutional.

The Court held that Section 8 (b) and (c) of the Act which defines a minority institution was violative of the rights of the minorities and minority institutions as envisaged in Article 30 of the Constitution.

Regarding Section 10 of the Act which says that a minority unaided professional college or institution would admit not less than 50 per cent of students from within the minority community to which the college or institution belongs, the Court said a fixed percentage as a minimum limit for admission of students of the same community would not be correct.

The Court said any regulation or provision of law such as Section 10 was ''unworkable, unreasonable, impracticable as also against the rights of minority institutions.'' The over 300-page judgement was given after disposing of five writ petitions by the State Government and a batch of petitions by self-financing professional college managements associations.

UNI