Justice James panel raises the bar

Thiruvananthapuram: The tenure of Justice J.M. James as head of Admission Supervisory Committee and the Fee Regulatory Committee came to an end at a time when the committee had made some of the finest interventions during its three year term. The newly appointed committee headed by Justice R. Rajendra Babu will now have to live up to the high standards set by its predecessor. It may be recalled that the committee had recently ordered the APJ Abdul Kalam University to cancel the registration of 277 candidates admitted to NRI seats in 12 engineering colleges for lack of permission from the AICTE.

The committee has also asked the varsity to cancel admissions of 83 students in three colleges without the minimum qualifying marks in the engineering entrance examinations. As per rules, students should get at least 10 marks in each paper of the two engineering entrance examinations. However, one of the most talked about decision of the committee was the one related to the self financing medical colleges. The committee had taken steps recast the rank list of many colleges as it found that the admission process was not fair and transparent.

They had in fact cancelled all admissions made to Kannur, Karuna and KMCT medical colleges. KMCT Medical College later accepted the committee directive that admissions to all seats would be based on the common counselling process. The committee had revised the admission made by Karuna Medical College ensuring the inter se merit of candidates after retaining the admission of 30 candidates made by Commissioner for Entrance Examinations during the spot admission held on October 7.

Moreover, the committee also decided to regulate the annual tuition fee of Karuna Medical College. The decision was later stayed by the Supreme Court. It had also set aside the admission of all 150 candidates by the Kannur Medical College for deliberately violating orders of the committee and the court. However, the committee had some advantages during the end of its term which helped it control self financing medical colleges. This was because the SC and Centre had ordered that admissions to all MBBS and BDS seats should be from a common counselling conducted by CEE.

Another important decision of the committee was that MBA admissions will be based only on performance in Kerala Manag-ement aptitude test (KMAT), Common Aptitude Test (CAT) or Common Management Aptitude Test (CMAT) from 2017-18, as part of efforts to maintain academic standard. When DC asked Mr James which according to him was the most important decision, he said that all the decisions had their importance and it was not correct to rate them. He declined to reveal if there was any job that he thought was left unfinished. “It is not fair to comment on such issues now,” he said.