Supreme Court verdict: State to seek legal clarification on two aspects

The State Government will seek a legal clarification on whether Friday's Supreme Court verdict on self-financing colleges case is applicable to both Government self-financing colleges and private self-financing colleges.

Minister for Education M. A. Baby told The Hindu here on Saturday that a clarification was needed on two things; whether the 50:50 principle was applicable to Government-owned self-financing colleges also and whether the directions regarding the fee were applicable to these colleges too.

"The AG would be asked whether we need to get back to the Supreme Court for this clarification or whether he himself can clarify it for us. Anyway I have not seen the copy of the verdict. I hope to get it on Monday," Mr. Baby said.

Minimum marks

He said the issue of the fee in Government-owned self-financing colleges could be finalised only after this clarification was received. The Government, the Minister said, was yet to apply its mind on the discrepancies between the policy of the AICTE and that of the University of Kerala regarding the minimum marks to be scored in the qualifying examination in order to be eligible for admission to engineering courses. The AICTE had pegged this at 35 per cent and the University of Kerala at 50 per cent. Now that the Government had no choice but to ask students to submit their engineering/medical options afresh, it would also become imperative on its part to first set right this discrepancy.

According to sources in the Government, the students need to be given at least five days-to-a week to resubmit their engineering/medical options. Those in the EB category who submitted options for `freeships' would now have to rework their options in the backdrop of full fees in self-financing colleges. According to officials of the National Informatics Centre here , once the resubmitting of options was over, it would take only a few hours to effect a fresh allotment.