Sri Chaitanya and Narayana, govt face Telangana High Court ire for fake admissions
Hyderabad: The High Court berated the government for not taking action against Narayana and Sri Chaitanya institutes that held admissions and conducted classes in around 45 branches without getting affiliation from the Board of Intermediate Education (BIE) for 2019-20.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A. Abhishek Reddy observed that it seemed that the BIE was hand-in-glove with the institutes.
“Why did you not take action against them for deceiving and cheating more than 20,000 students? You are allowing them to continue the illegality, even after you are aware of the facts. The government is co-accused in the illegality,” the high court bench said.
The bench was dealing with a PIL complaining that the BIE had given affiliation to the Naray-ana and Sri Chaitanya institutes to run branches even though the buildings did not comply with norms regarding fire safety and sanitation among others.
The BIE said it had received 71 applications from Sri Chaitanya to conduct classes at various places but only 49 had been given affiliation. Some 22 applications are pending at the government level for a decision because they did not fulfil the BIE’s requirements. In the case of Narayana, 79 applications were made and 46 were granted affiliation, while 33 are pending.
Even as a decision is awaited, Chaitanya has admitted students in 18 colleges and Narayana in 28 and classes have started. When this was questioned by the bench, Mr A. Sanjeev Kumar, special counsel for the government, said that considering the academic future of 20,000 students, the BIE had given conditional log-in to the students to appear for the exams and these colleges have been penalised heavily.
Justice Chauhan was not impressed.
“Why are you allowing them to cheat the students? Why have they not been closed for cheating the students? By paying penalties for illegalities, it does not become legal,” the CJ observed.
Reacting to the submissions of the government that the colleges had given an undertaking that they will not do this in future, the bench said: “We are surprised with the state for arguing like this. By allowing the violations, you are jeopardising the life of the students. If the murderer gives an undertaking that he will not do another murder, do you leave him without sending him to jail?”
Directing the BIE to take action against the colleges, the bench sought a compliance report by February 25 and adjourned the hearing to February 27.
