No medical admission beyond July 15, or face contempt: Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has framed a series of guidelines for admission to MBBS and BDS courses in the country, saying after July 15 each year, neither the government nor the medical or dental councils shall issue any recognition or approval for that academic year.

"The commencement of new courses or increase in seats of existing courses of MBBS/BDS are to be approved/recognised by the government of India by 15th July of each calendar year for the relevant academic sessions of that year.

"After 15th July of each year, neither the Union of India nor the Medical or Dental Council of India shall issue any recognition or approval for the current academic year. If any such approval is granted after 15th July of any year, it shall only be operative for the next academic year and not in the current academic year," the bench of justices A K Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar said.

The judges said violation of the orders would invite both contempt proceedings and initiation of departmental action against the violating its directions.

The bench initiated contempt proceedings against six officials in connection with the admission granted to two girls - Akansha Adile and Priya Gupta - in the MBBS course for the academic year 2006-07 in the Government NMDC Medical College, Jagdalpur in Chandigarh, on September 30, after overlooking the claims of several other meritorious students and the time schedule.

Contempt proceedings were initiated against the director general, Directorate of Health Services; S L Adile, director of Medical Education; the dean of Jagdalpur College; and M S Banjan, P D Agarwal and Padmakar Sasane, members of the selection committee. Akansha is the daughter of S L Adile.

However, considering the fact that the two girls are in their final year of MBBS study, the bench though holding their admissions illegal, imposed a cost of Rs five lakh on each of them which it said shall be used for development of Jagdalpur college.

The court said any college which grants admission for the current academic year, where its recognition/approval is granted subsequent to 15th July of the current academic year, "shall be liable for withdrawal of recognition/approval on this ground, in addition to being liable to indemnify such students who are denied admission or who are wrongfully given admission in the college.

"Any medical or dental college, or seats thereof, to which the recognition/approval is issued subsequent to 15th July of the respective year shall not be included in the counselling to be conducted by the concerned authority and that college would have no right to make admissions in the current academic year against such seats," the bench said.

According to the apex court, admission to the medical or dental colleges shall be granted only through the respective entrance tests conducted by the competitive authority in the state or the body of the private colleges.

"If any seats remain vacant or are surrendered from All India quota, they should positively be allotted and admission granted strictly as per the merit by 15th September of the relevant year and not by holding an extended counselling.

"The remaining time will be limited to the filling up of the vacant seats resulting from exceptional circumstances or surrender of seats. All candidates should join the academic courses by 30th September of the academic year," the bench said.

Referring to the two girls' illegal admission, the bench said, "The prescribed procedure for grant of admission was given a go by and the rule of admission on merit stood frustrated as a consequence of such admission process, "Where the time schedules have not been complied with, and rule of merit has been defeated, there nepotism and manipulation have prevailed. The stands of various authorities are at variance with each other and none admits to fault," the bench said.

SC slams panel for destroying answer sheets, orders fresh test

New Delhi: Upholding a woman scheduled caste candidate's plea that answer sheets were deliberately destroyed by the authorities to favour certain candidates, the Supreme Court has directed the Haryana Public Service Commission to conduct fresh written test and interview to recruit Hindi lecturers.
 
A bench of justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya agreed with the complaint of the candidate Poonam Rani that the commission had malafidely destroyed the answer sheets of the examination held in October 2008 to avoid judicial scrutiny of the selection process.
 
Noting that the destruction of the answer sheets was contrary to the apex court's earlier judgement and a resolution passed by the commission, the bench rejected the authorities' plea that the scripts were destroyed due to certain confusion and inadvertence.
 
"The explanation given by the Secretary for not preserving the answer sheets for three months is frivolous and wholly unacceptable because it is neither the pleaded case of the commission nor the counsel appearing on its behalf argued that the concerned officers were not aware of resolution dated 1.10.1994.
 
"Therefore, the action of the officers of the commission to destroy the record cannot but be termed as wholly arbitrary and unjustified.
 
"The sole object of this exercise appears to be to ensure that in the event of challenge to the result of the selection, the court may not be able to scrutinize the record for the purpose of finding out whether the selection was fair and objective or the candidates had been subjected to invidious discrimination," Justice Singhvi writing the judgement said.
 
The commission had earlier declined to select Poonam for the post of Hindi lecturer in the SC category on the ground that she had secured 117 marks out of 225 as against 119 marks secured by the last selected candidate of Scheduled Caste female category.
 
Her plea through the RTI for furnishing the answer sheets failed to get favourable response, upon which she moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court which too declined to interfere with the commission's order following which she appealed in the apex court.
 
In Pritpal Singh v. State of Haryana (1994), the apex court had considered a similar issue and held that "the answer papers having been destroyed, it becomes impossible to ascertain what marks each candidate had secured."
 
At that time, it had directed the Haryana Subordinate Services Selection Board to preserve the answer papers of the candidates and the tabulation of marks made by the examiners for at least three months after the declaration of the result of the selection.
 
In the present case, the bench said the affidavit filed by the Secretary of the commission clearly shows that within a few days of declaration of the result of the selection, answer sheets of the written examination held in June, 2008 were destroyed.
 
This was done in blatant violation of Resolution (Commission) dated 1.10.1994, in terms of which the answer sheets could be destroyed after three months from the date of declaration of the result of the selection."
 
The apex court also found fault in the manner in which the single judge and later a division bench of the high court refused to interfere with the plea of the candidate.