CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has ruled that even as the State government has the power to work out modalities for admission to engineering colleges in the State, the AICTE’s timeline approved by the Supreme Court (SC) has supremacy over it.
The ruling came on Thursday while disposing of as ‘withdrawn’ the Odisha Private Engineering College Association (OPECA)’s petition seeking direction to the Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) Committee to conduct a second Special Entrance Test for the vacant seats in engineering colleges of the State.
The AICTE and OJEE Committee had indicated in their affidavits that they have no objection to the conduct of the second test. However, no test can be conducted in view of the revised guideline issued by the AICTE as per the SC’s orders to complete admissions to the engineering courses by November 30, 2021, their affidavits stated. The State government, without filing an affidavit, submitted an order that it had issued on November 22, 2021, which permitted admissions at the institute-level against vacant seats to be completed on or before December 15, 2021.
The Supreme Court had issued the order on October 25, 2021 making mandatory the time schedule prescribed by AICTE in a case in which extension of timeline for completion of admissions to engineering courses was sought.
Citing it, the division bench of Justice Jaswant Singh and Justice SK Panigrahi said there is no doubt that State does have the power to work out the modalities of the admissions in view of the provisions of Section 3(2) of the Odisha Professional Education Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Fixation of Fee) Amendment Act, 2016. However, the timeline provided by the AICTE, as approved by the SC, always has supremacy over any other timeline provided by the State government, the bench observed.
Accordingly, it allowed OPECA counsel to seek permission to withdraw the petition. This will allow the association to approach the SC for seeking extension of time for admission to the vacant seats under the State quota beyond the stipulated time in the revised schedule (November 30).
The JEE Main was being conducted by OJEE Committee for admissions to the BTech courses against the seats meant for the State quota in the first week of May every year. But, due to the Covid second wave, it was postponed this year and conducted in September for the academic session 2021- 2022. The association approached the High Court as 60 pc of the seats remained vacant in the private engineering colleges.