Two Mumbai colleges asked to restart admissions to Std XI

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Tuesday ordered the resumption of admissions to standard XI in two colleges from Wednesday under the supervision of Deputy Education Inspector.

The management of these two junior colleges in suburban Andheri wants to close them down, but teachers have challenged this in the High Court. There was an allegation that management was systematically discouraging students from taking admission to 11th class in these two colleges.

A Division Bench of Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice Dhananjay Chandrachud said that subject to final decision of the case, students shall be admitted.

Forty-four teachers of MVLU College and Chinai College, both run by Laxmi Education Society, have approached the High Court challenging the notice issued by the society that standards XI and XII classes shall be closed by the end of academic year 2007-2008.

According to them, both the colleges together have intake capacity of 1,560 students for the Std XI, but the colleges have put up a notice that admissions to this year in the 11th standard would be only for the first semester, after which the classes would be closed.

While the college management says that it is financially not viable to run the course, the teachers allege that it wants to build a mall on the college land.

As there is already a shortage of seats for 11th class in city colleges, the Maharashtra Government too is not happy with the decision to shut down the colleges.

The management, however, claims it has absolute right to close the colleges if it wants to.