Don't give MBA admissions till April 28, Mumbai HC tells private colleges

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Thursday restrained the private colleges in Maharashtra from granting admissions to MBA courses on the basis of common entrance test (CET) held in March this year till April 28.

The order was passed by a division bench headed by Justice V M Kanade on a petition filed by a student challenging CET.

Earlier, the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) had assured the court that it would not start the admission process in the colleges affiliated to it. Its lawyer, Ashutosh Kumbhkoni, had said the admissions would not be given till April 28.

However, the petitioner's lawyer claimed that some private colleges had already started the admission process.

The court then passed a temporary restraining order, effective till April 28, the next date of hearing.

The petitioner Bhagat Makhijani, a final-year CA student who appeared for CET in March, has alleged that wrong questions figured in the examination.

The court has clubbed other petitions on the same issue, filed before the Aurangabad and Nagpur benches of the HC, with the present case. All the petitions would be heard together.

Earlier, the Nagpur bench of High Court had stayed the admission process.

DTE had told the court here at the last hearing that it had formed a two-member committee to go into the complaints.

"All the questions that stirred up the controversy were removed and students were evaluated after reduction of marks on equipercentile basis," Kumbhkoni had said. "We took the advice of an expert statistician and decided on evaluation," he said, adding that holding a fresh CET would not be possible.