CET law not inconsistent to Central legislation, says TN

Chennai, Apr 10 (UNI) The Tamil Nadu Admission In Professional Educational Instutions Act 2006 was neither inconsistent nor repugnant to any standard of education laid down by any Central Act, the Tamil Nadu Government told Madras High Court today.

Advocate General R Viduthalai made the submission on behalf of the state before Mr Justice P K Misra and Mr Justice J A K Sampathkumar hearing a batch of petitions challenging the abolition of CET under the Act.

Mr Viduthalai said the Act sought to achieve another method of uniform evaluation complementary to the Central Act which does not completely restrict the state from enacting the legislation in overlapping areas.

CET was not the be all and end all of the matter. Ultimately, the emphasis was on uniform evaluation or basis of selection. CET was only one of the methods, he added.

More than 90 per cent of CBSE students switch to the state board after SSLC. CET was one of the tools to achieve this end. The Central act prescribes CET and the present law prescribes normalisation which was an additional criteria and not inconsistent with the legislation.

Earlier, Senior Counsel K M Vijayan appearing for the petitioners submitted that this was the first situation where the law enacted by the state which varied from the law in the Union List got the President's assent.

In none of the entire legislation in the past two academic years, had the Tamil Nadu Government got Presidential assent. An Expert Committee was not a statutory creation. The government merely wants to pass the buck to the committee.

If we equate 90 marks of CBSE to 100 marks of state board students a similar ratio does not come down proportionately to all students.

The impugned order was without legislative competency and violative of Central legislation, he submitted.

As the arguments were inconclusive, the Bench adjourned further hearing to tomorrow.

UNI