Cuttack, July 6: Orissa High Court has restrained the state government from filling vacant seats in private engineering colleges without earmarking any seats of their total intake as management quota in addition to 5 per cent NRI quota seats this year.

The court imposed the restriction on filling up of seats during the ongoing counselling by OJEE Committee, 2013, on a petition filed by the Odisha Private Engineering College Association (Opeca).

The single-judge bench of Justice B.N. Mohapatra directed for counselling (for admission) for 90 per cent of the seats in private engineering colleges. The future of the remaining 10 per cent seats will depend on the final outcome of the writ petition, the court said in its interim order on Friday.

The 90 odd private engineering colleges in Odisha have a sanctioned strength of over 37,000.

The OJEE Committee, 2013, had stipulated “five per cent seats within sanctioned intake limits were available only to institutions and colleges that have got approval for NRI seats from the All India Council for Technical Education”.

Non-allocation of management quota seats in addition to five per cent NRI quota seats had irked private engineering colleges in the state. The Opeca moved high court seeking intervention on the ground that it did not comply with an order passed by the court last year.

“Our basic contention is that in a ruling on October 1, 2012, the court had earmarked 15 per cent of the total intake of private engineering colleges in Odisha as management and NRI quota seats,” Opeca counsel Devi Prasad Dash said today.

“Of the 15 per cent seats, the court had given the private engineering colleges the liberty to fill up 10 per cent under management quota by conducting their respective counselling under the supervision of the OJEE Committee.

However, the OJEE Committee has not earmarked any seats as management quota in addition to five per cent NRI quota seats,” said Dash.

The Odisha government contended that the OJEE Committee was only following guidelines of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

According to AICTE guidelines, technical institutions shall be permitted by competent authority for admission in respective states and Union territories to admit NRI students up to a maximum of 5 per cent of the total sanctioned strength. The AICTE had introduced the five per cent quota norm in 2010 by substituting 15 per cent of the sanctioned intake as prescribed by it in the preceding years.

Opeca secretary Binod Dash said: “As such, more than forty per cent of the seats are lying vacant in engineering colleges. With no seats earmarked as management quota in addition to five percent NRI quota, more seats will remain vacant.”

Of the over 37,000 sanctioned seats in the private engineering colleges in the state, nearly 17,000 seats have been falling vacant after several rounds of counselling in the past few years.