Tamil Nadu Violent reaction The landmark August 12 judgement of the Supreme Court reaffirming the abolition of the policy of admission reservations and government quotas in private, unaided minority and non-minority professional colleges, has provoked a verbally violent reaction from the Tamil Nadu state government. Chief minister J. Jayalalithaa has threatened to take the extreme step of nationalising institutions of professional education in the state if Central government legislation to restore state government mandated quotas in private, unaided colleges is not enacted pronto. “There will be no choice for the state government but to take over the entire administration of higher professional education and even the necessary assets thereof so that the principles of social justice can be firmly established,” she warned on August 16. According to her, the principles outlined in the Supreme Court order “constitute a major upheaval in the admission policy framework followed by most states”. Meanwhile the Tamil Nadu govern-ment has filed a petition in the apex court seeking a review of its judgement. Jayalalithaa has also written to prime minister Manmohan Singh to take urgent action to restore education to the state list of the Constitution so that every state can determine its own policy framework. The mercurial chief minister’s violent reaction to the seven judge bench’s judgement in P.A. Inamdar & Ors vs State of Maharashtra is hardly surprising. Tamil Nadu (pop: 62 million) has 220 private unaided engineering colleges affiliated to Anna University, two private medical colleges and an estimated 100 dental and para medical colleges. The Tamil Nadu Act 45 of 1994 provides for the reservation of 69 percent of total capacity in these institutions for scheduled castes, tribes, backward castes, most backward castes, and other notified communities. During the past decade, the number of seats available in government aided institutions has been only a small proportion of the total since most of the growth in technical and medical education has been in the private unaided segment. This year the number of seats available in government and aided engineering colleges is a mere 4,850 of a total of 78,000, of which about 40,500 were hitherto available to the state government for allocation according to the reservation policy. But when the Inamdar’s Case judgement comes into force next year, merit students in the reserved categories will have to compete for the 4,850 seats with the rest of the seats to be filled by institutional managements. According to Jayalalithaa this effectively shuts the door upon scheduled castes, tribes and MBC (most backward caste) students. “Opening these seats up again for government quotas ahead of the next state assembly elections scheduled for 2006, will translate into a huge bonus in terms of the non-urban and minority votes for the chief minister. That’s why the Tamil Nadu government has filed a petition in the apex court seeking a review of the Supreme Court judge-ment,” says D. Victor, former director of collegiate education in Tamil Nadu and currently director of the Chennai-based Academy for Quality and Excellence in Higher Education. Understandably, the…
