Engineering counselling to proceed as per schedule

Observing that unaided colleges cannot question the government’s right to obtain seats from private colleges for allotment through single window system, Justice K Ravichandra Babu, before whom the plea came up, said, “How can you interfere with the rights of the Government?” The judge observing that a plea cannot be entertained at the first place, adjourned it to next week to enable the state to file its counter. 

On June 22, the court had directed Anna university to respond to the plea moved by the petitioner-association seeking to stay the single-window counselling since the process ended up leaving numerous seats vacant during the past few years.  

The plea sought to enable colleges to fill seats on their own as the TNEA held by Anna University had failed to serve its purpose as it had left many seats vacant every year. 

The plea also noted that the process offered no time for colleges to fill the vacant seats which, resulted in a financial loss. 

Apprehending a vacancy of over one lakh seats this year, the plea claimed that the association had no choice but to move the present writ petition. However, on Thursday, the petitioner’s counsel pressed for a stay on the counselling, which the judge rejected outright.

Complaints against relocation of TASMAC shops in residential areas continue to flood the Madras High Court with the latest pertaining to opening a TASMAC shop in the ground floor of an apartment complex at Siva Sakthi Nagar in Tirumullaivoyil.

A division bench comprising Justice N Kirubakaran and Justice V Parthiban, before whom a plea moved by N Bhaskar and three others in this regard came up, directed the TASMAC general manager to file his response and posted the case for further hearing to July 20. The bench, while directing the general manager to act based on the circumstances prevailing in the area, also sought to know about the outcome of its earlier observations. 

The bench raised queries about the social media videos revealing children in school uniform buying alcohol without being hindered and ruckus prevailing in residential area where TASMAC shops are located. Seeking to know about the target fixed by the government for alcohol sale ahead of Deepavali, the bench wanted a response on TASMAC shops located near schools. 

The present plea on location of TASMAC shop in an apartment complex which was impleaded along with the existing petitions, submitted that the shop has been opened in the ground floor of the apartment which was earmarked for car parking, against the plan. Also, the bench on raking up the main petition filed by Nallathambi and 20 others, who were arrested in connection with the agitation conducted against the shifting of a TASMAC shop in Tirumullaivoyil, wherein the court’s order to release a person on parole was not heeded to, the bench wondered as to whether communication facilities in the prison have been improvised.

The confusion over the national song ‘Vande Mataram’ being written in Sanskrit or Bangla has seemingly come to an end with the Madras High Court being told on Thursday that though the song is of Sanskrit origin, it was written in Bangla.

Recording the submission made by Advocate General R Muthukumaraswamy in response to a plea moved by a teacher aspirant that his answer ‘Bengali’ to the objective type question was declared wrong by the Teachers Recruitment Board in a test held for appointment as BT in Government schools, Justice M V Muralidharan reserved his judgement to July 17. The petitioner K Veeramani had contended that Question No: 107(D-Type) (Paper II) asked: “In which language the song ‘Vande Mataram’ was written first. 

The multiple-choice answers were: a) Bengali b) Urdu c) Marathi and d) Sanskrit.” While he ticked Bengali, the government’s answer script marked Sanskrit as answer. Owing to this, he lost a mark, which stood between pass and fail in the examination. While he had scored 89 marks, the qualifying cut off mark  was 90. If he had got one mark for the question, he  would qualify to be considered for the BT assistant post,  Veeramani submitted.