Govt will re-examine law on CET, says minister

The State government on Thursday reiterated that it would have to re-examine the Karnataka Professional Educational Institutions Act, 2006, which was earlier proposed to be implemented in the academic year 2014-15. 

Sharan Prakash Patil, the Medical Education Minister, appeared helpless when he told reporters here that the government had “no option but to re-examine the pros and cons of the Act”. He further said there was a “collective failure” of the government, the Opposition and the media in trying to convince the public about the merits of the Act. 

Stressing that the government’s hands were “tied” by a Supreme Court ruling on fixing fees in private colleges, Patil said that none of the detractors appeared to have understood or even read the Act before making their case. 

“Hence, we will have the previous consensual agreement for the next academic year too. But we will also look into the pros and cons of the 2006 Act for the academic year 2015-16,” he added. 

‘Allaying fears’

The minister said he had asked the law department for its opinion on allaying the two major fears: seat allotment under CET and fixing the fees. But he stressed that any decision would be taken only under the ambit of the law. 

Patil insisted that the government’s decision to hold the Act in abeyance was “not a setback”.

He said he was “disturbed” by the “flip-flops” of the Opposition and the media over the implementation of the Act when the private education lobby collectively opposed it. 

“Linguistic minority colleges and deemed universities sent me several letters against implementing the Act, saying its clauses were stringent,” Patil explained. “But I guess we failed to convince people in this regard.” He hinted the education lobby might have pushed for scrapping the Act for the next academic year. 

Patil, however, remained noncommittal about the future of the Act and whether the government was planning to amend it or bring in a new law. The future of the two committees on fee fixation and admission to professional colleges, chaired by retired High Court judges, was also to be examined, he added.