HC rejects Telangana engineering colleges' plea

HYDERABAD: The High Court refused to grant relief to various private engineering colleges in Telangana state, which sought a direction to the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University and the state government to conduct fresh or supplemental counselling for admissions to their institutions under 'A' (convenor) and 'B' (management) category seats for academic year 2014-15.

The petitioner colleges, numbering 24, have brought to the notice of the court that the JNTU has not included their institutions in the list of colleges in which counseling was conducted for 2014-15 academic year even though their institutions have not been subjected to suspension or disaffiliation.

Justice A Rajasheker Reddy was dealing with the petition that questioned the action of the university in not forwarding the names of the petitioner institutions to the convenor for making admissions in respect of Category A and B seats and termed it as violative of the procedure stipulated in GO Ms No. 74 dated July 28, 2011 and GO Ms No.66 dated September 3, 2012.

Petitioners' counsel S Niranjan Reddy urged the court to declare the action of the respondents in not including their institutions in the ongoing counselling process for engineering and technical institutions for the current academic year as illegal.

He contended that though the petitioner colleges had complied with the court orders, the government and the university did not take steps to include the petitioners in the web counselling to facilitate students to choose these colleges for admission.

Advocate-general K Ramakrishna Reddy, arguing for JNTU-H, submitted that as per the directions of the Supreme Court the university concluded the admission process on August 31. The apex court fixed August 31 as the deadline to complete admissions. There will be no scope for conducting supplementary or fresh counselling at this stage, he noted.

After hearing the case, the judge said, 'We do not propose to grant any relief to the petitioners at this stage.'

The Telangana government is contemplating enacting an Act to set up the Telangana State Council of Higher Education (TSCHE) in the upcoming budget session of Assembly to provide it with statutory powers.

However, the council, under the aforementioned name, was actively involved in the exclusion of 174 engineering colleges from counselling process ever since the issue came to light.

Though TSCHE was set up after issuing a GO, it does not enjoy any power of a statutory body. The powers and responsibilities have not been charted out.

According to sources, the Telangana government would go ahead with making an Act after consulting the AP government as the AP State Council of Higher Education is listed under the Tenth Schedule of the AP Reorganization Act 2014, which requires agreement of both the state governments.