Reiterating the need for the stakeholders to come together and resolve the issue so as to ensure that there was no break in admissions, Justice B Pugalendhi observed that if the Centre had allowed the universities to make admissions this year, then it should have bothered to account for the aspect that the universities should abide by the UGC guidelines which insist on adhering to State reservation. However, keen to resolve the issue, the judge pointed out that the available options were to abide by the State reservation along with obtaining signed undertaking from the nine candidates that they would not insist on a stipend until the issue is resolved. 

But Anna University’s counsel expressed the precarious position that it had been put into in this issue. As the two courses are funded by the Centre, the institution has to abide by the Centre’s 49 per cent reservation and not the 69 per cent reservation adopted by the State, he said. 

Following this, Justice Pugalenthi observed that the present problem would not have risen if the Centre had issued the admission list as usual instead of asking the university to do it owing to the pandemic. He then directed the UGC counsel to get necessary instructions aimed at resolving the issue and adjourned the case to Thursday. During the hearing on Monday, the judge had wondered how Anna University could scrap the courses that have been producing scientists for the past 25 years, and also slammed it for losing vital time in sorting out a non-existent issue resulting in AICTE’s assertion that students could not be admitted this academic year as the last date ended on December 31.