Heated arguments over 85 per cent quota for state board

The division bench, comprising Nooty Ramamohana Rao and M Dhanapani, which heard arguments both in the morning and afternoon session, posted the case for further hearing to July 26. Earlier, advocate general R Muthukumaraswamy advanced arguments on behalf of the state that it was duty bound to make provisions to the protect the interests of the state board students as a level playing field failed to exist. 

Senior counsel N L Rajah appearing on behalf of state board students, said the reality that state board and CBSE are different in syllabus and standards need to be accepted. Owing to strict valuation in the CBSE, the state used to offer the students parity marks. “When that is acceptable, how can the reservation provided to state board students to evolve a level playing field become unacceptable?” he asked. 

Similarly, P Wilson argued that the CBSE schools are found only in the urban areas and are generally preferred by the privileged. Hence, to have a level playing field the government has taken a decision to give reservations to the state board students. Such a reservation cannot be held to be in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution. 

On the other hand, senior counsels Nalini and PS Raman said the Tamil Nadu government has notified the 85 per cent reservation only to serve the vested interest of the urban private state board institutions. They further submitted that in the past 10 years only 340 students from rural schools have managed to secure medical seats. This establishes the fact that the government is wrong in saying that the reservation is aimed at protecting rural state board students.

Within two days of the HC order directing to seal as many as 729 shops at the Koyambedu market for failure to pay up property tax, barring 41 shops the remaining have all paid up leading to a collection of Rs 1.67 crore. When the matter came up for compliance, additional advocate general Manishankar submitted on Thursday that the collection on July 19 and 20 had led to most of the defaulters paying up. Submitting a copy of the statement to that effect, he sought more time to collect the balance. Justice N Kirubakaran on recording the submission and heeding to the plea for more time posted the case for further hearing to July 27. Justice Kirubakaran on July 18 had directed the Corporation of Chennai to seal as many as 729 shops in the Koyembedu Market for failing to pay up property tax amounting to Rs 2.48 crore. It may be noted that the court’s interim order last year had made the defaulters pay up Rs 2.19 crore from November 17, 2016 to November 29, 2016.  But, the failure of the remaining 729 shop owners to pay up had led to the closure order. Now, with as many as 688 out of the 729 shops paying up, the Corporation on Thursday sealed the remaining 41 shops. 

Terminated law officers told to continue till further orders 

In a big setback to the government over its appointment of government pleaders and government prosecutors in as many as five districts, the Madras High Court has asked the terminated officers to continue until further orders.

The first bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar, while modifying the order passed by the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court, which stayed the Government Order appointing Law officers in Karur, Thoothukudi, Kanniyakumari, Tirunelveli and Pudukkottai, said, “The standstill by the reason of the interim order of July 5, 2017, will cause serious prejudice to litigants. No case involving the state, including cases of heinous crimes, atrocities against women, sexual abuse of women and children can be heard. The courts are also reeling under pressure of accumulation of arrears. Some modification/clarification is, therefore, imperative.”   Based on this, the bench in its order, said, “The interim order dated July 5, 2017, is modified/clarified to the extent that the government pleaders and public prosecutors, whose appointments have been terminated, may continue to represent the state until further orders, unless otherwise directed. In case of any complaint against an individual law officer the state can engage a different law officer from the old panel. This order shall continue till August 16, 2017, or until further orders, whichever is earlier.” The bench then posted all other matters relating to the challenge of appointments of law officers to July 31. A division bench of Madras High Court, while imposing the stay on the Government Orders appointing public prosecutors, had made it clear that the order would not give any right to the disengaged law officers to function either as public prosecutors or government pleaders before subordinate courts. Stating that the interim order needs to be vacated or modified, the advocate general R Muthukumaraswamy had submitted that the stay order has given rise to an impasse in the concerned districts in matters in which the state is a party, as it was going unrepresented.

Even as the Madras High Court had declined to stay the engineering counselling, which is in progress, the state in its counter has sought for a direction to the private institutions to admit students under the government quota as per the fees fixed by the Fee Fixation Committee for the academic year 2017-18 

Justice K Ravichandra Babu, on taking note of the amended prayer by the state in its counter, directed the additional advocate general to get instructions from the government in this regard and posted the case for further hearing to July 26. Tirunelveli Anna University of Technology Self-financing Engineering Colleges Management Association had sought for a direction to enable them to fill the seats on their own as the single window system, a part of Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA), resulted in a lot of vacancies leaving them in a financial turmoil. Trashing this, the state submitted that the single window system has been evolved to enable students belonging to socio-economically weaker sections obtain access to various courses offered by the engineering institutions all over the state by submitting a single application. Moreover, the system ensures adherence to the reservation policies of both the state and Centre such as sports quota, disability quota, ex-servicemen quota and communal reservation. Along with this, the state also provides fee waiver for first generation graduates admitted under this process irrespective of their social-economic status. The state’s counter filed by secretary, Department of Higher Education and director, Technical Education, also sought for the dismissal of the writ petition on the sole ground that it has been filed in the last hour and that the counselling for this academic year 2017-18 had commenced on July 17.