Bangalore: In a major reprieve to students, the Karnataka High Court on September 19 passed interim orders directing the state government to include all the newly-added, unfilled, cancelled or forfeited seats in any college to the casual round of admissions by Common Entrance Test (CET) and set September 30 deadline for admissions.

The state government suffered a setback following the orders, as it had earlier declared that no counselling for selection of seats would be permitted during the casual round and unfilled seats would go to the management quota.

Justice H Rangavitalachar passed the orders after hearing a batch of writ petitions filed by students questioning the decision of the government not to allot vacant seats in private unaided medical colleges through the casual vacancy admission round beginning from September 22.

The students had also challenged the restrictions that only those candidates who have not selected any seat during earlier admission round and the candidates who have not reported to the respective colleges after selecting a seat in a particular professional course were only eligible to appear for the casual vacancy round.

The judge also ordered that such students who have already reported to colleges will also be entitled to attend the counselling.

Justice Rangavitalachar further ordered that the allotment of seats were subject to result of the writ petitions and adjourned the further hearing to October 10.

PTI