The Supreme Court on Friday issued notices to several professional institutes on a petition filed by the Kerala government challenging a high court order quashing its notification claiming right of recruitment over 50 per cent of the seats offered by private professional colleges.

A bench comprising Justice S Rajendra Babu, Justice S B Sinha and Justice A R Lakshmanan refused to stay the January 20 order of the high court, which had held that Kerala was entitled to recruit candidates for 25 per cent of the seats offered by these institutes.

The high court had also held that the fee structure as laid down by the government order was wholly unfair and arbitrary. The review petitions filed by the Kerala government in the high court were also dismissed.

Appearing for the Kerala government, senior advocate K K Venugopal said that the state government had laid down the new guidelines for admissions to the professional colleges on the basis of the judgment of the 11-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court in the minority educational institutions case.

Venugopal said the judgment authorised the government to adopt different methods for providing merit based selection, where upon a certain percentage of the seats could be reserved for admission by the management out of those students who have passed the Common Entrance Test held by the institution, state or university.

By the December 18 last year notification, the state government said, "50 per cent of the seats in every college shall be filled up by the college itself and the remaining 50 per cent through counselling by the commissioner."