HYDERABAD: A division bench of the
Hyderabad High Court
comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice K Vijaya Lakshmi on Monday made it clear that the
Language Pandit Common Entrance Test
(
LPCET
) for courses in Telugu, Hindi and other languages in
Telangana has to be conducted by March 15.
The Bench said this while dismissing an appeal filed by the Telangana government. When LPCET was not being conducted by the government, seats were left vacant. VPT College filed a writ petition in the High Court complaining that though the National Council for Teachers' Education (NCTE) permitted them to offer courses in LP, the state government was not conducting the test. The single judge bench directed the government to conduct the test which was challenged.
The state government contended that the present duration of the course is only nine months and it wants it to be for two years.
The Bench reminded that NCTE had granted permission for the present course of nine months and that LPCET has to be conducted. "If you get it changed to a two-year format later, you can do so. But till then, you have to continue with the existing course that has NCTE approval," the Bench said, and gave time to the state to conduct an entrance test by March 15.