MHT CET: Applications equal seats, illegal EWS admissions, no records – Maharashtra colleges err across board

Three private professional education colleges in Maharashtra accepted exactly the same number of applications for admission during the institute-level counselling last year, as the number of available seats. Fourteen other institutes didn’t maintain a record of applicants’ presence during this admission round, while 20 enrolled candidates against the vacant economically weaker section (EWS) seats despite there being no provision to fill these seats during this phase of admission.

These are among the several apparent violations of the state’s admission norms for higher and technical education courses – including engineering, management, pharmacy, architecture, law and teacher training – in the academic year 2025-26. The alleged irregularities were recently flagged to the state Admission Regulating Authority (ARA), which has directed that the erring institutes be reprimanded and asked to submit an explanation.

The revelations have once again put a spotlight on the contentious institute-level counselling, where the colleges are allowed to fill the institute or management-quota seats as well as the spots left unfilled during the centralised admission process (CAP) – the ‘Against CAP’ or ‘ACAP’ seats - on their own. The alleged wrongdoings suggest possible manipulation of merit lists and opaqueness in institute-level admissions, echoing frequent complaints from aspirants and activists.

The authority has decided to enhance surveillance during the ongoing institute-level counselling this year by appointing observers at select the private colleges and has mandated video-recording of the admission process. The colleges have also been asked to maintain daily record of candidates and their parents attending the admission process.

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MHT CET: Less than half colleges comply with norms

According to the records of an ARA meeting held last week, the sub-committees appointed by the authority to check the compliance of norms during the institutional admissions said that only 76 out of 164 colleges under scrutiny – less than half – fully adhered to the admission guidelines. The rest were found to have been guilty of various violations, such as not displaying the details of available seats on the website, failing to publish merit lists and lacking the record of students visiting the institute for admission. Eleven of the institutes didn’t turn up for the verification.

The most flagrant of the irregularities was noted at three institutes – a Pharma college and two business schools – which reported to have received the same number of applications as the available seats. These institutes failed to consider the applications routed through the state Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell, and only accepted the ones made directly to them. Between them, the three colleges admitted a total of 94 students.

“The candidates have to send their applications directly to the institute during the institutional round. However, it’s not feasible for them to go to the college, there’s a provision to fill a form and send it to the CET Cell. The Cell then provides the list of all these candidates to the colleges, who are then supposed to create the merit list based on both the types of applications,” explained an official from the Cell.

ARA has sought an explanation from the institutes for ignoring the applications made via CET Cell.

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MH CET Cell: ‘No records’ of visiting students

The sub-committees also found that 14 colleges, spanning across disciplines and bulk of them located in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and Pune, didn’t maintain the record of the students visiting the institutes. “It’s for the institutes to maintain the record. Otherwise, how will one verify if the students have been admitted through merit,” said the official.

While ARA eventually approved the admissions granted by these colleges, it ordered that these institutes be instructed not to make this mistake in future.

At the 20 institutes that admitted students on EWS seats, the authority has kept on hold 49 admissions for pending EWS verification. It, however, did approve the other 654 admissions. These colleges, too, have been asked to explain their position.

The authority found two colleges – a management school near Pune and a computer application institute in Mumbai – to be in “serious” violation of admission rules, though it didn’t specify what they did wrong. These colleges will face “strict warning”, show the meeting records.