TN govt does a U-turn, says Annamalai medical college is self-financing institute

CHENNAI: In a weird U-turn, Tamil Nadu government has told the Madras high court that a constituent medical college of Annamalai University was a ‘self-financing institution,’ less than a year after it had told the same court in a related case that the government was correct in taking over the university as more than Rs 2,300 crore of public money had been pumped into it.
Slamming the government for its ‘self-defeating’ stand on the issue, Justice V Ramasubramanian referred to the government’s own counter-affidavit filed while justifying the take-over order, and said: “Right from the year 1928, the government had pumped in a huge amount of public money into the university by way of contribution to the permanent endowment fund as well as by way of annual contribution.Therefore, to say that it is a self-financing institution, would virtually amount to pleading the case of the founder of the university. I think in an attempt to save the hair, the university has taken a stand that would throw the head into the grinding mill.”
The matter relates to a writ petition filed by a student, K Vaithi Viswanath, who could not get MBBS admission in Annamalai University’s constituent college Raja Muthiah Medical College, despite having scored 197.5 cut off marks out of 200. Citing that the allocation of 69% of the available 150 seats to reserved categories was responsible for his exclusion, he cited a Supreme Court order directing the government to create additional/supernumerary seats in its medical colleges to accommodate students affected by 69% quota regime, he wanted the court to direct the government to create additional seats for students who would have otherwise got admission had quota been limited to 50% as mandated by the apex court. Advocate-general A L Somayaji, representing the university, noted that it was a self-financing college.
Justice Ramasubramanian, refusing to accept the stand, said: “It is quite unfortunate that a person appointed by the government as registrar in-charge of the university pursuant has taken a stand that Raja Muthiah Medical College is a self-financing institution, without realising that such a stand is completely contrary to the letter and spirit of the counter-affidavit filed by the government itself in the writ petition filed by the grandson of the founder challenging the validity of government take over.”
The judge further pointed out that the government had the court that the state of Tamil Nadu had given Rs 427.98 crore from 1998-99 to 2012-13. “After taking a stand in the earlier counter affidavit that hundreds of crores of rupees had been granted by the state government in a period of just 14 years, I do not know how the authorities dare to claim that the college is a self-financing institution. The college might not have received grants directly from the government. But, it received everything from the university, which in turn, survived only at the cost of the government funds,” Justice Ramasubramanian observed.
“The mind-boggling statistics given by the government of Tamil Nadu in their counter affidavit shows that what was originally conceived by the founder and the public at large to be a philanthropic venture, appears to have ultimately turned out to be a profitable commercial venture,” he said.
He then directed the government to create supernumerary seats in the college as per the directions of the Supreme Court and consider the case of the boy who filed the writ petition, within a week so that his plea would not become infructuous.