MUNEEB UL REHMAN HAROON S M SALEEM Vs. GOVERNMENT OF JAMMU AND KASHMIR STATE:GOVERNMENT OF JAMMU AND KASHMIR STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These Writ Petitions are not maintainable under Article 32 of the Constitution because they do not involve the violation of any fundamental right of the petitioners. The petitioners applied for admission to the Medical College, Srinagar, for the Post-graduate Course of the Kashmir . University for the semester beginning in July 1980. They appeared for an entrance test but the result of that test was not declared officially. The petitioners seem to possess, information to the effect, and they have so alleged in their petitions, that they have passed the test. No admissions were made either to the July 1980 semester or to the two following semesters beginning in November 1980 and July 1981. An entrance test was held for admission to the semester beginning in November 1981 and the result of that test has been announced. We are informed that 16 out of 17 petitioners in these two Writ Petitions appeared for that test.

(2.) There is a vague averment in the petitions that the refusal of the Government to admit any student at all for the July 1980 semester is violative of the petitioners' fundamental rights under Articles 14 and 19 of the Constitution and is also mala fide. We are unable to see how. The petitioners have not been picked and chosen for hostile treatment as compared with other candidates similarly circumstanced. They are also not deprived of their right to practice any profession or to carry on any occupation. They are all qualified doctors, they have passed their M.B.B.S. examination, almost all of them have appeared for the entrance test held for the November 1981 semester and they are all serving and practising as doctors.

(3.) Shri T. U. Mehta, who appears on behalf of the petitioners, says that the wholesale non-admission of students to the Postgraduate Course for the three semesters which commenced in July 1980, November 1980 and July 1981 is an arbitrary act which offends against the guarantee of fairness implicit in Article 14. The answer of the State Government is that the rules which were in operation in July 1980, governing admission to the Post-graduate Medical Course, were prejudicial to the interests of the students of the Jammu Medical College and were, to an extent, discriminatory. That is why, no admissions were made to the July 1980 semester. There is apparently no reason for doubting the veracity of this explanation though, we do not know why the amendment of the rules of admission, so as to bring' them in conformity with the requirements of the Constitution, took as long as 18 months. The red-tape correspondence between the Health Department Commissioner, the Principal of the Srinagar Medical College, the Vice-Chancellor of the Kashmir University and the Ministry of Health consumed a long time.