HC Gives Nod to Engineering Colleges to Fill Up Vacant Seats

Hyderabad:The Telangana High Court on Monday gave approval to several private engineering colleges to fill up all their vacant seats and cautioned them against collecting capitation fee while doing so. October 23 is the final date to fill up the seats as per the Supreme Court guidelines and the date fixed by AICTE.

A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J. Sreenivas Rao, was dealing with contempt cases filed by the colleges complaining against Burra Venkatesam, principal secretary, higher education, A. Sridevasena, commissioner of technical education, Prof. Sriram Venkatesh, secretary of Telangana State Council for Higher Education and B. Dean Kumar, convener of Eapcet 2024 for non-compliance of court directions regarding mop-up counselling. The court had in September first week directed the authorities to conduct mop-up counselling in respect of the enhanced intake capacity of the petitioner colleges.

Against the orders of the High Court, the higher education department and others preferred a special leave petition before the Supreme Court, which dismissed it on September 20.

Although the High Court orders attained finality, the orders were not complied with. The colleges then filed a contempt case.

While dealing with the cases, the division bench expressed dissatisfaction against the authorities for disregarding court orders. The court issued notices to all the four officers, who have been named and directed them to explain why contempt proceedings cannot be initiated against them.