Hyderabad High Court says deletion of colleges illegal

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court directed JNTU to allow private colleges that fulfilled requiste norms to take part in the online counselling sessions. Earlier, maintaining that the approvals from the All India Council of Technical Education and the state government were mandatory to run the colleges, Justice A. Rajasekhar Reddy pointed out that the government had granted approval to the petitioners' colleges on August 7.

He observed that the JNTU also had not communicated refusal of affiliation to the colleges, but had straightaway deleted the names of the petitioners’ colleges from the counselling list, which practically amounted to refusing affiliation, and was arbitrary and in violation of natural justice. The judge added that the JNTU had not followed its own regulations before taking the decision.

Referring to the submission of the advocate general that the colleges could appeal against the decision of the JNTU under the Universities Act, the judge said in view of the deadline fixed by the Supreme Court to complete the admissions process by August 31, the varsity could not take a decision in this matter at this point of time.

The judge then directed for inclusion of those colleges, which had the prescribed faculty as per the relevant regulation of JNTU, in the list for counselling and also ruled that the colleges should give an undertaking that they would fulfill the other deficiencies pointed out by the varsity within a month from the date of closing of the admission process. The judge made it clear that JNTU was at liberty to take action if the colleges failed to fulfill the undertakings within the time limit stipulated by the court. He also ruled that JNTU could not reduce the intake capacity once the AICTE had approved the same.