Is there any provision in the Indian Constitution or any other law permitting allotment of a seat in B Arch course for a foreign national? Who is the founder of Anna University, under whose quota three seats have been allotted?
Posing these questions, Justice V Ramasubramanian of the Madras High Court on Thursday directed the Anna University Registrar to appear before him on Friday to answer the questions.
The judge was admitting a contempt application from Y Vandana of T Nagar seeking to punish AU Registrar DS Shanmugavel and others. Originally, the Council of Architecture passed a resolution on April 19 this year reducing the permitted intake to bachelor degree course in Architecture in the School of Architecture and Planning, Anna University, from 80 to 40 seats for 2012-13. Challenging this, the AU moved the High Court and on July 13 last, Justice Ramasubramanian permitted the University to fill up all the 80 seats subject to certain conditions, including rule of reservation.
Meanwhile, Vandana filed a writ petition challenging the rejection of her application on the ground that she had studied only business mathematics in the higher secondary exam. On September 3, Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar held that candidates who had studied business mathematics were also eligible for admission in B Arch course.
Vandana filed the present application on the ground that the university did not comply with the earlier orders of the High Court. It was a clear case of contempt, her senior counsel K Doraisamy contended.
During the course of argument, AU counsel produced a letter of TN Engineering Admissions Secretary, which stated that of the 80 seats, 20 had been allotted without holding single window counselling. Eight seats were allotted to the consortium of industries, two for other state candidates, four for NRIs, two for CIWGC, one for a foreign national and three towards founder’s quota.
Wondering as to whether there was any provision in the Constitution or in any other law to provide one seat to a foreign national and three seats towards founder’s quota, Justice Ramasubramanian observed that this showed the conduct which was to be despised. The conditions imposed in his July 13 order had been thrown to the wind and the concession shown to AU had been totally abused prima facie. The conditions had been imposed as there were allegations that AU had been filling up seats illegally for a price, the judge said.
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