Those who didn’t qualify MBBS entrance eligible

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 6

In a significant judgment, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that candidates, who did not qualify the MBBS entrance examination, were eligible for admission against NRI quota seats at the GMCH, Sector 32, Chandigarh. The order came after the High Court observed that the MCI circular making the examination mandatory had been invalidated.

The development is significant as a similar plea has been taken by a candidate in a related matter on MBBS admissions in Punjab. The ruling by the Bench of Justice SS Saron and Justice Amol Rattan Singh came on an appeal filed by Gina Kaur Gill and other appellants.

The Bench was told that the appellants did not secure 50 per cent marks in physics, chemistry and biology taken together in the entrance test for being eligible. The condition for securing not less than 50 per cent marks in the aggregate for the NRI quota seats was provided for by the MCI circular, dated January 16, and was incorporated in the prospectus issued by the GMCH. The Bench was told that the circular stood quashed by a Karnataka High Court judgment. The SLP against the order, too, was dismissed by the Supreme Court on July 6.

Taking up the matter, the Bench observed that the circular, dated January 16, had been declared illegal and without legislative sanction. It was to be taken that the circular was invalid from its very inception. “Therefore, the circular itself having been invalidated, the consequential incorporation of the same in the prospectus is also invalid and inoperative”.

The Bench added that the terms contained in the prospectus were binding. However, the condition contained in the prospectus was invalid for all purposes from its inception, in case of being invalidated by a judicial order.

“In the circumstances, the clause contained in the prospectus, which has been invalidated by a judicial order, cannot be made applicable…. The procedure and criteria that were in force for selecting candidates for the NRI quota seats at the GMCH, Chandigarh, before the issuance of the circular, dated January 16, would be applicable and, in fact, had been made applicable by the GMCH vide its letter, dated August 18, in view of the Karnataka High Court judgment and dismissal of the SLP against the same….

“In accordance with the earlier criteria, which became applicable and operative, the appellants were eligible to apply for admissions to the NRI quota seats at the GMCH in as much as there was no requirement for them to have secured not less than 50 per cent marks in the aggregate of physics, chemistry and biology taken together in the entrance test to be eligible.

The Bench concluded: “All claimants for NRI quota seats being otherwise eligible for admission against the available seats, the question whether it is mandatory to secure minimum 50 per cent marks in a competitive entrance test for NRI quota seats in medical/dental colleges is left open.

“The appellants being eligible in accordance with the amended prospectus and in view of the MCI circular, dated January 16, being invalidated would be entitled for admissions against NRI quota seats at the GMCH, which would, however, not disturb or in any manner affect the admissions granted to Rajat Jain, Shivani Gupta and Parneet Kaur Grover being in Category II of the NRI quota seats as no one else has made a claim for the seats or approached this court.”