Pravesh Niyantran Samitee can act against errant colleges: HC

Mumbai, Mar 13 (UNI) Pravesh Niyantran Samitee, set up in pursuant of judgments of the Supreme Court, has the authority to impose penalty and take serious action against colleges which flout norms while admitting students for higher and technical education courses, ruled the Bombay High Court today.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice J P Devdhar, however, reduced the penalty imposed by the Samitee on Shree Vile Parle Kelvani Mandal for admitting students flouting merit norms set for admissions for Engineering and B.Pharm courses from 10 per cent of total fees collected from students to 5 per cent.

Imposing higher percentage of penalty would result in affecting facilities and standard of education which ultimately leads to disadvantages for the students, the court observed.

But, this reduction of penalty would be subject to conditions that the institution undertakes to follow Common Admission Process next academic year and admit students only on the basis of merit. The court has given a week's time to the institution to tender this undertaking otherwise the Mandal would have to cough up 10 per cent of all fees collected from students.

The Pravesh Niyantran Samitee had imposed the penalty on Dwarkadas J Singhavi College of Engineering and Dr Bhanuben Nanavati College of Pharmacy, run by Shree Vile Parle Kelvani Mandal, for not participating in Common Admission Process in 2006-07. The Samitee had initially imposed 50 per cent of total fees collected, but later reduced the amount to 10 per cent after the institution made a representation to the Samitee.

The colleges had not participated in Common Admission Tests conducted by either by the State Government or by Association of Minority Colleges saying that being a Gujarati Linguistic Minority College, they were free to admit students of their choice. Apart from terming this as blamable conduct, the judges have said that the colleges have acted on their own whims and adopted method which was not permitted.

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