Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Monday refused to stay the ongoing web counselling of Eamcet 2014 for filling seats in engineering colleges in Telangana state. Justice Rajasekhar Reddy was hearing a batch of petitions by private engineering colleges as an urgent motion challenging the action of the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University of Hyderabad in cancelling affiliation to 174 colleges on the ground of inadequate facilities and faculty.
Several senior counsels appearing for the colleges contended that the University refused the affiliations to the colleges without there being any prior notices and the varsity has no power to refuse the affiliation once the All India Technical Education Council accorded permission to run the colleges.
The counsels urged the Court to direct the Higher Education Council of the state to include the colleges in Web Counselling without reference to the decision of the JNTU, otherwise they will be put to irreparable loss as the affected colleges have about 1.25 lakh seats of various branches of engineering.
The counsels argued that the regulations mandated issuance of notice and giving opportunity to rectify the deficiencies. K. Ramakrishna Reddy, advocate general of Telangana arguing on behalf of the Higher Education Council and the varsity, said most of the engineering colleges in the state of Telangana do not have the basic amenities including computers, toilets and faculty and the government is not going to spend funds on such colleges.
Mr Ramakrishna Reddy said that the Supreme Court had directed the governments to complete the admission process by August 31 and if stay is granted it will be contrary to the orders of the Apex Court.
Maintaining that the Higher Education Council as well as the varsity will be made available in the notices in their websites by August 20, he urged the court not to grant any stay and grant time till August 22 to file the counter affidavits on the petitions. While considering the request of the advocate general, the judge admitted the petitions and adjourned the case to August 22.
