New Delhi, August 10
The Supreme Court today restrained the Himachal Pradesh government from filling the 15 per cent seats of BEd course meant for the all-India quota in unaided private colleges with domicile students.

Admitting a petition challenging the state’s admission policy in private colleges, a Bench of Justices B.N. Agrawal and Tarun Chatterjee issued a notice to the state and Himachal Pradesh University, seeking their replies by July 31. The petition was moved by the HP Promotion Society (HPPS) and a student.

The high court, in its July 6 judgment, had said that its order permitting 15 per cent admission against the all-India quota would apply only for the 2008-09 academic session, apparently for the reason that the admission process this year had been set in motion in November last year.

However, senior advocates P.P. Rao and Dushyant Dave, appearing for the HPPS and Seema, who sought admission to a private college against the all-India quota, told the court that counselling was not yet over, and therefore, non-Hamachali students who aspired to get admission this year against the 15 per cent all-India seats still could avail it.

But the apex court refused to pass an interim order for giving “provisional” admission to the outside students till the matter was taken up for hearing. Rao and Dave wanted to get interim direction for provisional admission to make sure that the students did not miss the admission opportunity in this session.

But the Bench said till replies were received from the state government and HP University, such a direction could not be issued.

The HPPS, in its special leave petition, stated that the high court had not decided the main question whether the government could reserve 100 per cent seats for domiciles in unaided professional colleges in the light of the Supreme Court ruling in the Inamdar case judgment. Any such reservation, would be illegal, it said.

Other issues raised by the petitioners include non-fixation of the fee structure by the state as per the Islamic Academy and Inamdar case rulings, fixing the upper age limit of 26 and 28 years for male and female students for admission to the BEd course.

The petitioners have also raised the question on the basis of HP University’s stand that from next year the domicile and the all-India quota would be fixed at 75 per cent and 25 per cent, respectively, for admission to the BEd course.