The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that states had no right to appropriate seats as their quota in professional private colleges as well as unaided and aided minority institutions.

A 7 judge bench, headed by Chief Justice R C Lahoti, gave this ruling and said minority institutions, whether aided or non-aided, were free to admit students of their choice.

They said students from other communities could be admitted but not to such an extent so as to change the minority character.

The court allowed private professional colleges to admit Non Resident Indian students up to 15 per cent of the total seats without giving merit a go-by.

The money collected from NRI students could go to benefit the poor students, the court said.

Saying that the right to administer could not be allowed to result in mal-administration, the court reiterated that profiteering could not be permitted on any ground.

The court also said there should be a centralised single window admission system to promote merit, excellence and curb mal-practices.
    
The court said the institutions could not be debarred from framing their own fee structure regarding admission but the same could be regulated by the states to prevent profiteering.

Upholding an earlier judgement on setting up 2 committees to regulate the fee structure and admission procedures, the court said these were stop-gap arrangements done by the court till a suitable legislation was enacted.