HYDERABAD: Making it clear that the government cannot declare a holiday on the ground that a lot of seats are going vacant, a division bench of the Hyderabad High Court has held that Section 20(3) of Telangana Education Act does not provide any scope for rejecting a No Objection Certificate (NOC). The NOC cannot be rejected solely on the ground of a policy decision that was taken by the state government on the basis of the number of seats falling vacant in a particular course, the court said.
It directed the JNTU, Hyderabad, to grant NOC to the petitioner institution to start Pharma-D course for the academic year 2018-19. While the statistics relating to engineering education present a dismal picture, the same was not the case with pharmacy. The bench comprising Justice V Ramasubramanian and Justice T Amarnath Goud was allowing the petition filed by Sangam Laxmi Bai Vidyapeet challenging the JNTU’s refusal to grant NOC to its institution - Bojjam Narasimhulu Pharmacy College for Women in Hyderabad on the ground that there was a government policy not to grant NOC for new institutions and new courses.
While directing JNTU to grant NOC to the petitioner, the bench made it clear that it would be open to AICTE and Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) to examine whether the application of the petitioners could be considered or not.