Madras High Court ruling on quotas in unaided educational institutions

Today's Hindu is reporting a ruling by the Madras High Court which, if carried to the Supreme Court (a course of action that seems inevitable, given the issue), has the potential to cause a re-examination of the current jurisprudence on quotas in unaided professional educational institutions. Here are extracts from the report:

"The Madras High Court on Monday upheld the constitutional validity of a State legislation and a consequent Government Order directing the unaided professional colleges to surrender a certain percentage of seats to the State quota and also to follow centralised counselling for admission for management quota seats.

Justice V. Dhanapalan, dismissing a batch of writ petitions filed by various associations of self-financing professional colleges, said the Tamil Nadu Admission in Professional Educational Institutions Act 2006 had been given effect to “taking note of the local needs and, specifically, larger interest and welfare of the student community and to promote merit, achieve excellence and curb malpractices.”

The petitions challenged three specific clauses of the Act relating to the surrender of 65 per cent of the total seats to Government by non-minority institutions and surrender of 50 per cent of seats by minority institutions; admission of students for management quota seats through the centralised counselling or single window system (SWS); and admissions on the basis of marks obtained in the qualifying examinations alone."