Madras high court judge Justice TS Sivagnanam, hearing a petition by a mother that her daughter was not paid her prize for winning a beauty contest at an engineering college, decided to issue notice to the local government in his interim order to ban such events at universities.

“It is not known as to how walking the ramp would benefit a student pursuing a course in engineering,” said the judge, according to reports in the Times of India and elsewhere, wanting an investigation into how such events by colleges, ordering until the next hearing on 22 May: “Till these issues are considered, the secretary of higher education department, commissioner of technical education and director of collegiate education are directed to issue a circular forthwith to all institutions, universities, deemed universities and colleges in the state to ban or not to conduct any beauty show or programme to decide best looking male/female student in their institution or at inter-collegiate level.”