‘Lapsed Seats’ In Merit Quota Can’t Be Filled Up With ‘Unqualified’ Students: Kerala HC [Read Judgment]

The fact that the seats are lying vacant is not a ground to have admitted students without qualifying in the entrance test, the bench said.

The Kerala High Court has held that lapsed seats for engineering course in the merit quota cannot be filled up by the educational institution by admitting students who are not qualified in the entrance test conducted by the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations.

Sree Narayana Institute Of Technology, a self-financing college, had approached the high court challenging the admission supervisory committee disqualifying 46 students admitted in the “lapsed seats”, on the ground that they were not qualified in the entrance test.

A division bench comprising Justices PR Ramachandra Menon and P Somarajan, observed that if there are any “lapsed seats”, they will get added on to the 'management quota' and the same can be filled up only from the list of students, who have cleared the entrance test conducted by the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations.

Referring to an agreement executed between the Association of Self-financing Institutions and the government, the court observed: “The inevitable conclusion is that the factum of admission effected by the petitioner institution filling up the “lapsed seats” by students, who are not qualified in the entrance test (which fact is admitted by the petitioner institution), does not require any further fact-finding exercise, to arrive at an inference that such admission is bad in all respects and cannot be sustained as valid in the eye of law.”

The court also rejected the contention that the order, having been passed solely by the chairman of the committee, could not be regarded as a valid order. “Even if the statute does not prescribe the quorum, if the scheme of the statute prescribes something else as to the transaction of the business, definitely the said provision has to be given effect to,” the bench observed.

Read the Judgment here.

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