Tamil Nadu government has announced that a Common Entrance Test (CET) would be held for the coming academic year, on May 13 "� 14, 2006. This would put an end to the uncertainty over the process of admission to professional courses in the state. | |
| An official release said that taking note of the pendency of a special leave petition on the issue before the Supreme Court, a tentative programme for holding the CET has been finalised in order to avoid any anxiety among students and parents regarding the admission policy for the coming academic year. |
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| The CET would be applicable to all students, including state board students, and its pattern would be similar to those held in previous years. Anna University has been instructed to take up the task of holding the examination, it added. |
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| However, it said that the system to be followed in admissions to professional courses would eventually be determined on the basis of the decision of Supreme Court. |
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| The government announcement came a day after the Supreme Court posted the hearing on the special leave petition on the issue to April 13. The petition challenges a Madras High Court order against the government decision to abolish CET for state board students. |
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| Elaborating the steps taken in this regard, the release said the government had abolished CET in an order dated June 9 last year as it considered that admission to professional colleges based on Plus 2 marks of the students would place the rural students on an equal footing with the students from urban areas, who had a better access to special coaching facilities. |
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| Subsequently, the state government evolved a new system of admission and enacted the Tamil Nadu Regulations of Admission in Professional Courses Act 2006, which enabled the state board students to seek admission to undergraduate professional courses based on their marks in Plus 2 examinations without writing the entrance test. |
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| However, the High Court, in its judgement dated February 27, 2006, had held that the state government had no legal competence to bring in such an act and directed the state to hold CET for the academic year 2006-07. The government then filed the SLP in the Supreme Court challenging the verdict. |
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