M A I N   N E W S

Apex court quashes HC order
Admission of HCMS candidates to PG courses
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, April 29 — The Supreme Court has struck out the order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court on the method and criteria to be followed for the selection of candidates for admission to post graduate degree and diploma course in medicine from amongst the Haryana Civil Medical Service.

A three-member Bench headed by Chief Justice A.S. Anand, Mr Justice R.C. Lahoti and Mr Justice Doraiswamy Raju, held that ‘‘the High Court committed a serious error in this regard which vitiates its judgement and the same is accordingly set aside.’’

‘‘We hold that the merits of the HCMS candidates are required to be adjudged in terms of a criteria contained in the government orders and the selection can be made for admission against reserve seats as per the determination of merit by the selection committee set up for the purpose,’’ the Bench observed in a Special Leave Petition filed by Rajiv Kapoor and others against the State of Haryana.

The apex court said the High Court fell into a serious error in sustaining the claim of the petitioners that selection and admissions for the course have to be only in terms of the stipulations contained in the prospectus issued by the university.

‘‘Such an error came to be committed in assuming that the government had no authority to issue any directions laying down criteria other than the one contained in prospectus and that the marks obtained in the written entrance examination alone constituted proper assessment of the merit performance of the candidates applying for selection and admission,’’ the Bench observed.

‘‘The construction placed by the High Court, if accepted may result in discrimination on account of applying different criterion of total marks for open candidates and service candidates without noticing the distinguishing features relevant for the purpose of assessment of merit in the case of HCMS candidates,’’ the Bench stated.

Several doctors who filed writ petition before the High Court claimed that as per norms and criteria mentioned in the prospectus issued by the medical college, selection for admission could be made only on the basis of marks obtained by the candidate in the entrance examination held for the purpose.

The various selected candidates, however, contended that the marks obtained in the entrance examination only entitled the petitioners to be called for interview since it only was a qualifying test rendering candidates eligible for admission.

They contended that the final selection of HCMS candidates was required to be made by the selection committee constituted for the purpose on the basis of specified criteria stipulated by the government from time to time.

The writ petition filed by several persons was allowed by the High Court and the candidates who had been selected, filed the SLP before the Supreme Court.

The counsel for the petitioner, Mr Nidhesh Gupta, contended that the reasoning adopted by the High Court rendered the admission criteria set out by the government meaningless and not being considered at all.

The interpretation required to be given was an harmonious one by which the provisions contained in the prospectus could be harmoniously construed with the instructions issued by the government.

The Supreme Court said it was due to the wrong interpretation placed on the rules governing admission by the court that they could not get admission for the academic year 1997, in question.

‘‘We are not, at this point of time, inclined to accede to the claim of the appellants for issuing any direction to the respondent authorities to accord admission to the appellants to the post-graduate degree course in question for more than one reason,’’ the Bench observed.