In a significant judgment, the Orissa High Court has imposed a penalty of `10 lakh on National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST), Berhampur for indulging in malpractice of seat blocking.
The division bench of Chief Justice AK Goel and Justice AK Ratha has directed the institute to deposit the costs within one month, failing which the BPUT will not regularise the admission of students and grant admit cards.
The bench has also directed the Government and the Policy Planning Body (PPB) to strictly follow the schedule for conduct of examination, declaration of result, counselling, date of admission and commencement of academic session. Any deviation by any authority is not only contemptuous but also subversive under the rule of law, the bench ruled citing the schedule formulated by the Supreme Court.
The High Court has held NIST guilty of seat blocking and admitting students without the statutory counselling process even as it has allowed regularisation of students by BPUT. The students, Sudhanshu Sekhar Sabat and others, who faced an uncertain future on account of non-regularisation, had filed a writ petition in the High Court.
The petitioners submitted that they had qualified in the OJEE for 2012 and the All India Engineering Entrance Examination. They were taken in by NIST against the vacant seats due to non-reporting of selected students.
Their admission was not routed through the regular OJEE counselling and the PPB had not given the nod for a special counselling for vacant non-reporting seats on account of deviating from the academic calendar of BPUT. The college has instead taken undertakings from the students to continue with the courses awaiting regularisation.
The students alleged that the OJEE authorities had assured them of conducting a special counselling for filling up the vacant non-reporting seats but an unilateral decision was taken to not regularise their admissions.
The BPUT and OJEE countered stating that the students had not participated in the several counselling rounds for filling up vacancies. The OJEE had also not allotted seats in the college to the students.
While alleging that NIST had indulged in seat blocking and admitted less meritorious students after counselling for the admissions was over, the regulatory authorities had pointed out that college level counselling was not permissible under Orissa Professional Educational Institutions (regulation of admission and Fixation of fees) 2007 Act.