By IANS
New Delhi : The Supreme Court is to hear Tuesday a plea by Kerala's private medical colleges seeking deployment of central paramilitary forces in the state during their medical entrance tests for the 2007-08 academic session as they alleged the Left student unions were hindering the exams.
The hearing of the plea was adjourned Monday by a bench of Justice B.N. Agarwal and Justice P.P. Naolekar after Additional Solicitor General Vikas Singh told them that the central government would not file any reply to the petition but abide by the court order.
The petition had been filed Friday by the Kerala Private Medical Colleges Managements Association for a directive to the central government to provide central paramilitary forces for security during its Common Entrance Test (CET) for admission to four private medical colleges in the state for 2007-08.
The Kerala medical colleges, in their petition, said they were not able to conduct the entrance test on two earlier occasions due to "state-sponsored terrorism", as students affiliated to the communist unions prevented holding of the test and police remained mute spectators.
The petitioners said the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government through its student organisations, the Students Federation of India (SFI) and the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), had publicly protested against the medical colleges conducting the test.
The private medical colleges said that the students wing of the ruling Left parties have created political unrest in the state. They had announced that the CET would not be allowed to be conducted.
The petitioners said they were forced to cancel the entrance test on June 23 after the SFI and All India Students Federation (AISF) disrupted the test.
The petitioners alleged that the police had left the venue at 7.45 a.m. before the student activists arrived and it looked as if it was stage-managed by the state government.