SHANKAR Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN these Writ Petitions, 5 students have approached this Court asserting common facts and raising common questions of law. Hence, all these petitions are heard together and are disposed of by this common judgment. IN fact, these Writ Petitions were listed before the learned Single Judge of this Court and an INterim Order directing provisional admission of the students for the various Post Graduate courses in Dental Sciences has been passed on 31.05.2007. Challenging the said INterim Order, the Karnataka Religious & Linguistic Minority Professional Colleges Association and as also the Principal, Oxford Dental College and Research Centre, Bangalore filed two separate Writ Appeals, in W.A. No.1032/2007 and 1046/2007. IN the course of hearing of the said Appeals, it was felt that the questions raised for consideration in the Writ Appeals virtually result in considering the questions raised in the Writ Petitions. Hence, for the purpose of effective and final adjudication of the controversies raised before the Court, the Writ Petitions were ordered to be heard along with the Writ Appeals. Therefore, the Writ Petitions are before us for consideration.

(2.) IN W.P. No.7019/2007, there are 3 petitioners, whereas W.P. 7469/2007 & 8094/2007 are filed by individual students. These 5 students had appeared for the Post Graduate Common Entrance Test (for short 'PGCET-2007') for admission to P.G. Dental Courses in the Religious & Linguistic Minority Professional Colleges in Karnataka. The Karnataka Religious & Linguistic Minority Professional Colleges Association (for short 'the Association') which is arrayed as respondent No.4 in W.P. No.7019/2007 has conducted the examination. It has 5 Minority Educational INstitutions as its members which include both Medical and Dental Colleges situated in the State of Karnataka. They are (1) Al-Ameen Medical College, Bijapur (2) Al-Armeen Dental College, Bijapur (3) Bangalore INstitute of Dental Sciences, Bangalore (4) Coorg INstitute of Dental Sciences, Virajpet & (5) The Oxford Dental College, Bangalore. IN these cases, we are concerned with the Dental Colleges only as admissions to Post-Graduate Dental Courses for the academic year 2007-08 are under challenge.

(3.) IT is the case of the petitioners that the Association had announced the calendar of events for the P.G. Common Entrance Test - 2007 and conducted the Entrance Test On 18.02.2007. Although the brochure issued by the Association stipulated that the final merit list would be published on 27.02.2007 the time schedule was not adhered to. The key answers were published on 19.01.2007. Objections were filed by some of the petitioners to the said key answers as some of them were wrong. The final merit list was never published and as such, they were not aware of the ranks of other candidates. They could only know their ranks by logging on to the website. The four petitioners, viz., Dr.P.G.Parvathi, Dr.G. Hariprasad Rao, Dr. T.R. Shyamprasad & Dr. Balakrishna were respectively assigned rank No.24, 45, 67 & 56. As per the Notification-Annexure 'N', the counselling took place on 15.04.2007. However, the counselling was not conducted in a transparent manner. There was no display of merit list. The candidates were not given any information of the availability of seats. Only those persons whose names were called out at random were taken to a private room and they were selected. The Association conducted the counselling only for the sake of formality. Contrary to the declared rule of filling up the seat first by candidates belonging to Linguistic or Religious Minority and thereafter passing on the unfilled seats to the General Category, the Association filled up the seats purportedly by the General Category candidates whose merit itself was doubtful. They further contend that in all 45 seats were offered to the candidates belonging to Religious and Linguistic Minority and although Dr. P.G. Parvathi and Dr. GHariprasad Rao had secured Rank No.24 & 25, it was ununderstandable how they were not allotted any seats. They have further alleged that as could be seen from the merit list, similar ranks were given to several candidates which has resulted in manipulation of the merit list. IT is further contended that in the counselling conducted by the COMED-K, which is an Association of Private Medical, Engineering & Dental Colleges to fill up 15 Telugu Minority Seats, a candidate who had secured 564 rank was successful in securing the seat, whereas in the counselling conducted by the Association, even a candidate who had secured 24th rank could not secure the seat although there were 45 seats. In support of their contention that the Entrance Test conducted was not transparent, they have further asserted that the candidate who secured 5th rank in the PGCET conducted by the 3rd respondent " Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Science was given 33rd rank in the Entrance Test conducted by the Association herein. Similarly, one Dr.Thomas Varghese who had secured 3rd rank in the Entrance Test conducted by the Association (respondent No.4 in W.P.No.7019/2007) had secured rank above 1000 in the Post Graduation Entrance Test conducted by the 3rd respondent-Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences. IT is thus submitted by the petitioners that the test conducted and the results announced were neither dependable nor transparent.