Guwahati: The Assam government on Monday claimed that a section of teachers and officials with vested interest are instigating the students to oppose the move to shift affiliation of engineering colleges under Gauhati and Dibrugarh universities to the Assam Science and Technology University (ASTU).

During hearing of a petition filed by 21 students in Gauhati High Court against the move, senior additional advocate-general Devajit Sai-kia told the court on Monday that "with the mala fide intent of scuttling the process, some teachers and officials having vested interest in the matter are instigating the students to agitate the matter before the court only to frustrate the policy decision of the state".

A certified copy of the order was issued on Tuesday.

The petitioners, who are students of the Assam Engineering College (AEC), Jorhat Engineering College (JEC), Jorhat Institute of Science and Technology (JIST), Bineswar Brahma Engineering College (BBEC) and Barak Valley Engineering College (BVEC), have submitted before the court that ASTU does not have any ranking or credential and if they had prior knowledge about the decision to change the affiliation of these colleges to an "unknown" university such as ASTU, they would have never opted for these engineering colleges.

The AEC, BBEC and the BVEC are affiliated to Gauhati University while JEC and JIST are affiliated to Dibrugarh University.

Petitioners' advocate Niloy Dutta said the information booklet of the Combined Entrance Examination (CEE), 2017, clearly notifies the universities under which the government engineering colleges are affiliated to.