OUT OF COURT
Advice to youth now preparing for entrance examinations: Prepare well and keep cool. Advice to their parents: Find a good lawyer. This is because after every season for admission to professional colleges, there is a rush of candidates to the high courts and the Supreme Court. This was a growing practice in the last two decades.
There are about a dozen issues which invite a harvest of litigation. Apart from irregularities in conducting tests and counselling, some other matters that give rise to cause of action to go to courts are disputes over affiliation of colleges, merit seats versus management quota, fee structure including capitation fees, reservations, policies announced by regulators, and affirmative action leading to reverse discrimination. To make the situation more complex, there are several boards and other authorities attempting to regulate education, some at the central and others at the state level. They are themselves accused of negligence or corruption, like the Medical Council of India. They have to deal with self-financing and minority institutions, IITs, IIMs and autonomous universities and colleges. Proliferation of institutions of various shades makes the field more intricate.
One of the traps for candidates who aspire for higher professional education is admission to non-affiliated colleges. “Illegal admission in non-affiliated colleges has become a disease,” the Supreme Court lamented last year in an elaborate judgment, Anuragi Devi vs State of UP. In the face of this spreading malady, the court had laid down a time-bound procedure for affiliation. But this is not always followed either by the authorities or the colleges, leaving students in the lurch. When students move courts they pass interim orders that lead to appeals in the Supreme Court. In one Karnataka case, the high court directed the college to allow the students to complete the course, but the Supreme Court struck down the order. In another case, the non-affiliated college was imposed a fine of ~5 crore for admitting students against government notification. In one case involving a West Bengal non-affiliated college, the court took away the management quota for two years.
Another source of litigation is admitting more students than the sanctioned number, promising them official approval later. They also sail along with the rest but the government and the regulators catch them mid-course. Then they move courts which pass varying orders. Appeals again land in the Supreme Court, making it all a kind of gamble with career.
Malpractices in conducting examinations are common, highlighted by the recent “Vyapam scam” and celebrated in films titled MBBS or LLB and their sequels. In that case 634 students completed medical course by fraudulent means in successive years. Two judges wrote elaborate judgments, differing in their solution to the problem. One of them suggested compulsory government service without salary for five years or recruitment to military service. The other called it “awarding premium on fraudulent candidates”. Courts are not sure what to do with students who are in the midst of the course or completed it through illegal means or from non-affiliated colleges. The issue has thus gone before a larger bench. The court orders often raise more questions than they answer. For instance, last year the court recalled its 2013 judgment on NEET for medical entrance.
Demand for capitation fee is another knotty question recurring before the court. Two decades ago, the Supreme Court delivered strong verdicts against the growing virus and had asserted that “restricting admission to non-meritorious candidates belonging to the richer section of society and denying the same to poor meritorious is wholly arbitrary, against the constitutional scheme and as such cannot be legally permitted. Capitation fee in any form cannot be sustained in the eyes of law. The only method of admission is by ways of merit and merit alone”.
The practice continues nevertheless. Three months ago, a constitution bench reiterated that education has become commerce or occupation, though permitted by Article 19 of the Constitution. However, “profiteering and commercialisation are not permitted and no capitation fee can be charged”. Noble sentiments. However, the two evils have only grown over the decades. Since most of the new private colleges have links with politicians, business houses or real estate tycoons, these institutions have become an alternative way of amassing black money through cash-for-degree bargains. Digital payments and bitcoins are far away. To conclude, the third and final advice, which this time goes to taxmen, is to keep the engines of raid party vehicles running and swoop on private professional colleges and affiliating bodies in the coming months.