P H RAGHURAM Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The writ petitioners are graduates in Dentistry and had sought admission to the M.D.S. Course in the Government Dental College. All of them had obtained a merit ranking which was below that required for securing admission to any one of the fourteen sanctioned seats - two in each of seven specialities, in that college. Petitioners contend that they are nevertheless entitled to be admitted as, according to them, by the operation of Section 10A(5) of the Dentists Act, 1948 additional 18 seats are deemed to have been sanctioned.

(2.) They obtained interim orders from this Court, the first of which was made on 02.07.1999 for the academic year 1999-2000 followed by similar orders for succeeding academic years 2000-01 and 2001-02, directing the State Government to increase the number of seats from 14 to 32 provisionally, and to admit the petitioners according to merit and in accordance with law against that increased number. The interim orders were based on the assumption now shown to be erroneous that there was, in fact, a deemed approval of the Central Government for such increase under that provision, Section 10A(5). The State, however, deliberately chose to submit to those interim orders. It is only when similar interim orders were made by the learned single Judge, for the current academic year 2002-03 the State preferred the present writ appeals against those interim orders.

(3.) Section 10-A and 10-B were introduced into the Dentists Act, 1948 by the Dentists (Amendment) Act 1993, in order to check the mushroom growth of Dental colleges, to regulate opening of new courses, and to regulate increase in admission capacity. They read as under: 10-A. Permission for establishment of new dental college, new courses of study, etc.