MUMBAI, July 6: The Sena-BJP government today decided to move Supreme Court against the Bombay High Court's directive to make merit the sole criterion for admissions to schools and junior colleges.

``I am making it clear that we are not responsible for the inconvenience caused to the students. Since we feel that the high court has caused inconvenience to a large section of students, we have decided to file a special leave petition in the Supreme Court,'' Chief Minister Manohar Joshi told media persons today. ``I feel that the HC directive adversely affected a large number of students,'' he added.

The chief minister denied there was a delay in moving the Supreme Court, since the interim order passed by the high court specifically asked the state government to promulgate necessary orders with immediate effect. The BJP, Sena's alliance partner in the government, had also urged Joshi to move the Supreme Court against the HC verdict. A division bench of the Bombay High Court on May 5 had passed an interim order directing the government to make merit the sole criterion for admissions to schools and junior colleges. The order also stated that the educational institutions should be directed to display the list of admitted students along with the marks secured by them.

Subsequently, the higher education department issued comprehensive guidelines to all educational institutions and explained at length the procedure prescribed by the high court. Later, however, Higher Education Minister Datta Rane held a meeting with officials as well as heads of educational institutions after he found that the department was facing difficulties in implementing the HC order.

Forum For Fairness in Education had filed a petition before the high court bringing to its attention the malpractices in the admission process.Joshi's decision, meanwhile has come in for severe criticism from bureaucracy. Senior officials said it will encourage colleges to charge capitation fees. ``It appears the alliance government has succumbed to political pressure. The HC order had reduced the importance of MLAs and MPs,'' an official said.

and Commerce gave admissions to additional students under the assumption that the university will ultimately accept them, a squad member said.

Colleges like Akbar Peerbhoy has 300 vacant seats, while Ambedkar has 560, K J Somaiya has 87, Siddharth College has 492, Guru Nanak College has 146, and Burhani College has 219 vacant seats. "It is the emphasis on some colleges over others that create all the problems," observed Manhas.

Deshmukh maintained, "Due to delay in issuing circulars and its lack of clarity because of the ongoing court case, colleges are confused. For example, they do not know, whom to give preference, in-house students or merit."

The Vice-Chancellor refused to comment on the issue of touts operating in the college campuses. Last week Colaba police had arrested a tout posing as a press reporter and warned the public against underhand dealers. The Government is expected to put up this issue before the court shortly.

Manhas suggested that the university should ask for the final list after the fourth round of admissions is over and tally it with the first three lists to detect any malpractices. Deshmukh disclosed that now the monitoring will be done on the basis of grievances expressed by the students to the university grievance cell. The president of Principals' Association of Non-Government Colleges, M G Shirhatti termed the constitution of the observers as a hand-pick arrangement by the university.

"How can you ensure fair deal with ten observers covering just about 40 colleges (of the total 151 colleges) on the basis of information furnished by the principals of the institutions and not going through each and every applications submitted by the candidates? Why did we not have more observers involving current principals, ensuring a better deal by making these principals share the responsibility?"

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.