Clause which compels Self Financing Colleges to surrender 50% of their seats as Government quota, is ultra vires.

P. Jyothimani, J.

The common question involved in all these cases relate to the challenge to G.O.Ms.No.214 High Education (G1) Department dated 04.07.2007, filed by the Management Association of Self Financing Colleges of Education as well as some of the Self Financing Institutions imparting instructions on B.Ed., course relating to three clauses in the said Government Order, viz.,

(i) Reservation of Seats;

(ii) Selection and Counselling by Single Window System; and

(iii) Government quota in the Colleges of Education.

.2. Presently there are 200 B.Ed., Colleges throughout the State of Tamil Nadu, which are granted recognition by the National Council for Teacher Education in short, "NCTE"), Southern Regional Committee, Bangalore, and these institutions are imparting UG level and P.G. degree programme, viz., B.Ed., and M.Ed., courses and they are fulfilling the norms and standards as prescribed by the NCTE.

3. B.Ed., programme is one year course, wherein students after having completed the respective UG degrees like B.A., B.Sc., etc. are admitted based on the minimum eligibility marks as prescribed by the NCTE under its norms and standards. Each College is permitted to have the annual intake of 100 students. The said Self Financing Colleges are not aided by the Government, but whose courses are recognised by the State Government as well as NCTE and are hitherto filling up the seats every academic year based on the marks obtained by the candidates in the UG degree programme and in some cases based on their PG degree programme, from among the eligible applicants in accordance with inter-se merits strictly following the minimum eligibility criteria as prescribed by the NCTE.

.4. The State Government passed G.O.No.185 Higher Education (G1) Department dated 13.06.2005, giving certain guidelines to be followed for admission to B.Ed., M.Ed., M.Phil. and Ph.D. (Education) courses for the academic year 2005-2006. Accordingly, the selection was directed to be made based on the entrance examination to be conducted by a Nodal Agency, viz., Lady Wellington Institute of Advanced Studies in Education, Chennai-5. Certain exhaustive procedures and guidelines have been given in the said Government Order in respect of conducting entrance examination, preparation of rank list etc, to be followed by the said Nodal agency, for making admissions in the Government B.Ed., Colleges as well as in the Government quota in respect of aided minority and non-minority B.Ed., Colleges. It is the case of the petitioners that entrance examination stated in the said Government Order specifically restricted to the admission in the Government Colleges and it is also stated that in respect of candidates seeking admission under the Management quota in Government aided Colleges of Education and Self Financing Colleges of Education, there was no necessity for appearing for the entrance examination. Therefore, hitherto all the Self Financing Colleges, which are unaided have been admitting 100% of students based on the minimum eligibility criteria and depending upon the inter se merit. Even the students who have written entrance examination in the Government and Government Aided Colleges were admitted in these Self Financing Colleges not based on their performance in the entrance examination, but based on the degree qualifications and the said admissions have been approved by the respective Universities and the students have also passed out the B.Ed., degree examination from these Colleges atleast in two sets.

5. However, the first respondent -State Government has recently come out with the impugned G.O.(Ms)No.214 Higher Education (G1) Department, dated 04.07.2007, prescribing new set of procedure to be followed for B.Ed., Colleges, making it applicable to Self Financing Colleges regarding admission procedure. According to the said Order, the Government have stated that the number of B.Ed., Colleges which were originally 22 in the year 2003-04 have been incr