Friday, August 12 2005 12:04 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today (Aug 12, 2005) ruled that states have no right to appropriate seats as their quota in professional private colleges as well as unaided and aided minority institutions.

A seven-judge bench headed by Chief Justice R C Lahoti gave this ruling and said minority institutions, whether aided or non-aided, were free to admit students of their choice.

They said the number of students from other community could be admitted but not to such an extent so as to change the minority character.

The court allowed private professional colleges to admit NRI students up to 15 per cent of total seats without giving merit a go-by.

The money collected from NRI students could go to benefit the poor students, the court said.

Saying that the right to administer could not be allowed to result in mal-administration, the court reiterated that profiteering cannot be permitted on any ground.

The court also said that there should be centralized single window admission system to promote merit, excellence and curb mal-practices.

The court said the institutions could not be debarred from framing their own fee structure regarding admission but the same could be regulated by the states to prevent profiteering.

Upholding an earlier judgement on setting up two committees to regulate the fee structure and admission procedures, the court said these are stop gap arrangements done by the court till a suitable legislation was enacted.