The AP High Court on Tuesday asked the state government to provide the required machinery to the Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee (AFRC) to help it inspect professional colleges in the state.
“Why does the government want to interfere in the issue by bringing out a GO constituting task forces to inspect the colleges? Instead, it can provide the required machinery and mechanism to the AFRC for the purpose as the latter was already entrusted with the job of fixing college fee structure”, the court remarked.
Dealing with a petition seeking suspension of GO 54 dated Aug 11, 2012, a division bench comprising acting chief justice P C Ghose and justice Vilas V Afzulpurkar said that there would be no difficulty if the AFRC was given powers. In fact, the petitioners, representing colleges/institutions, are not against it in authorising the AFRC for the purpose.
By the next year, the government should ensure providing all the necessary requirements to the AFRC. It adjourned the matter for further hearing to Friday.
Additional advocate general KG Krishna Murthy informed the court that he would get instructions from the government on the issue. The data, submitted by various private engineering colleges and educational institutions, do not match with the ground reality in respect of infrastructure and other facilities, and as for the AFRC, it has no mechanism to inspect the colleges, he explained.
The petitioners’ counsel said that the government has no power in appointing task forces to inspect the colleges, as it was the AICTE which has granted permission to them. The issuance of GO 54 was illegal and intended to harass the college managements who have not filed affidavits accepting the fee (of `35000) proposed by the government, they contended.
Earlier, the bench perused the report submitted by additional AG containing inspection of colleges by JNTU. About 44 colleges have been inspected by the JNTU.
It may be mentioned here that the government has constituted task forces (at district, regional and state level) to inspect professional colleges whether they have required infrastructure like library and laboratory.