*Colleges being deprived of SRO-51 benefits
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Aug 26: The Jammu and Kashmir Board of Professional Entrance Examination (BOPEE), which is required to perform its duties in a fair and transparent manner, is openly violating the calendar for regulating admission to the Professional Colleges approved by none else than the Supreme Court. Moreover, it is creating impediments in extension of benefits given to the private colleges by the State Government vide SRO-51 of 1997.
Sources told EXCELSIOR that Supreme Court, in a civil appeal titled Parshavanath Charitable Trust Versus All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) on December 13, 2012 had approved the schedule for admission in the engineering courses to be strictly followed by the All India Council of Technical Education and Boards of Professional Entrance Examination of all the States.
While approving the schedule, the Supreme Court had stated: “We approve these admission dates and declare it to be the law which shall be strictly adhered to by all the concerned and none of the authorities shall have the power or jurisdiction to vary these dates of admission”.
“Certainty in this field is bound to serve the ends of fair, transparent and judicious method of grant of admission and commencement of courses and any variation is bound to adversely affect the maintenance of higher standards of education and systemic and proper completion of courses”, the Apex Court had further stated.
As per the calendar duly approved by the Supreme Court, the entrance examination (AIEEE/State CET/Mgmt Quota exams etc) shall be conducted in the month of May and first round of counseling/admission for allotment of seats is required to be completed on or before June 30. Similarly, the second round of counseling for allotment of seats is required to be completed on or before July 10 and last round of counseling for allotment of seats shall be completed on or before July 20.
Moreover, according to the calendar, July 30 is the last date for admitting candidates and August 1 is the last date for commencement of academic session. August 15 is the last date up to which students can be admitted against vacancies arising due to any reason.
However, during the past several years none of the dates of this calendar are being adhered to strictly by the J&K Board of Professional Entrance Examination in utter disrespect to the Apex Court of the country, sources said while disclosing that the BOPEE has completed the second round of counseling only in the middle of this month despite the fact that as per Supreme Court fixed calendar academic session should commence by August 1.
Stating that by stretching the process till the last few days the BOPEE is depriving colleges of their fundamental right, sources said “due to non-adherence to the calendar by the Board of Professional Entrance Examination lots of seats are lying vacant in the private institutions”, adding “data of last three years indicate that on an average over 400 seats remained vacant in the private institutions”.
They informed that BOPEE has not exhausted the complete merit list of students over the years inspite of seats remaining vacant in various institutions thereby violating the fundamental rights of the students.
“Not only the BOPEE is flouting the Supreme Court fixed calendar, it is also depriving the private institutions of benefits of SRO-51 issued by the State Government in 1997 by stretching the entire process”, sources said.
The SRO-51 states: “The Competent Authority shall also prepare and publish a waiting list of the candidates indicating the marks obtained by them in the Common Entrance Examination. This list shall be followed for filling of casual/drop out vacancies from the select list as reported to them by the concerned Principals/Heads of the Institutions/ Colleges. Such vacancies shall be filled in the descending order of their merit until such date as may be prescribed by the Competent Authority. Any vacancy remaining unfilled after such date can be filled by the management of the Institutions/Colleges under intimation to the Competent Authority. Provided that the management shall keep the inter-se merit of the candidates in view while filling up the remaining vacancies and all the selected candidates must possess the minimum marks prescribed for entrance test”.
According to the sources, the Board of Professional Entrance Examination is the only counseling agency in the country which doesn’t follow online system and continues to rely on manual and non-transparent system.
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