Dear Professionals, E-journal row: HC blow to AICTE TNN | Jan 12, 2012, 03.30AM IST CHENNAI: The Madras high court has restrained the All India Council for Technical Education http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Technical-Education(AICTE), the statutory body established for the development of technical education in the country, from taking any coercive action against any institution for not subscribing an e-journal. The AICTEhttp://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/AICTEhad recently put out a list of e-journals compelling self-financing engineering colleges to subscribe to them at mandatory rates for the academic year 2012-13. Justice Vinod K Sharma on Wednesday passed the interim order on the writ petitions filed by the Association of Management of Coimbatore Anna University-affiliated Colleges and the Consortium of Self-Financing Professional Arts and Science Colleges in Tamil Nadu. "The authorities are restrained from taking any coercive action against the institutions for not subscribing to a particular journal detailed in annexure 1," the judge said. The matter will be taken up for further hearing in March. Saying that the conditions in the new handbook were arbitary, senior counsel N R Chandran submitted that AICTE could not compel institutions to purchase e-journals of particular publishers at pre-fixed rates that too without consulting the institutions concerned. Since there were about 5,500 engineering colleges in the country, the annual subscription fee would be in the range of Rs 825 crore, he said. The Association of Management of Coimbatore Anna University-affiliated Colleges, which was the first to approach the court, said it was unfair for the AICTE to insist that colleges should purchase selected foreign e-journals at exorbitant cost through a private agency, the petition said, adding that, "institutions cannot be forced to bear such arbitrary, exorbitant and additional burden". The above article can be accessed on http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/E-journal-row-HC-blow-to-AIC... -- With Regards, C.T.Kantharaj Librarian, Cambridge Institute of Technology, K.R.Puram, Bangalore - 560036 -------------------------------- Phone: 080-25618798 / 99 Mobile: 9448611800 -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.