No coercive action, HC tells AICTE

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has restrained the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) from taking coercive action agai-nst colleges for not subscribing to foreign e-journals. In their petition, P Selvaraj, secretary of the Consortium of Self- Financing Professional Arts and Science Colleges in Tamil Nadu, and K Paramasivam, president of the Association of Coimbatore Anna University-Aff-iliated Colleges, said the AICTE had brought in a new regulation requiring the affiliated colleges to subscribe to e-journals. The petitioners said the fee for the e-journals was exorbitant.AICTE has nominated a private agency, Global Information Systems Technology Private Limited, through whom 5,000 plus institutions are compelled to buy a majority of e-journals.It was prayed that the revised norm for approval insisting on e-journal subscription should be quashed and process the applications without insisting on the new regulation. In his interim order, Judge Vinoth Kumar Sharma restrained the AICTE from initiating any coercive action against the institutions for not subscribing to e-journals.