S R KEERTHANA Vs. NATIONAL BOARD OF EXAMINATIONS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Writ Petition has been filed seeking to issue a Writ of Mandamus, directing the 1st respondent to declare the petitioner as candidate belonging to OBC category in the NEET-PG Examination based on the Backward Class Community Certificate of the petitioner and further declare her as eligible and qualified for the ensuing admission and counselling in National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test PG 2017 based on the marks secured by the petitioner in the category Other Backward Class (OBC).

(2.) The petitioner is a Doctor, having completed 5 1/2 years Integrated Medical Course at Chennai Medical College and Research Centre in 2014. The petitioner also had completed the Compulsory Rotary Resident Internship during March, 2015 in the same Institution and the award of the degree for MBBS was given on 22.07.2015. The petitioner is also duly registered with the Tamil Nadu Medical Council on 19.10.2015. It is stated that the petitioner belonging to Backward Community, namely, Kallar, which is classified as Serial No.43 in G.O.Ms.No.28, Backward Class and Most Backward Class Welfare Department, dated 19.07.1994. She has also obtained the Community Certificate duly issued by the Revenue Authority. The petitioner, aspiring for the Post Graduate Course, has written the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, shortly known as "NEET". The application has to be made only through Online and the bulletin was a self-contained code. The petitioner had applied and allotted ID.No.CD1690792. The results were published for the NEET PG 2017. An official website of the National Board of Examination published the results on 13.01.2017. The petitioner had scored 681.5436 out of 1500 marks which comes to 45.436%. However, the petitioner was not selected under the Unreserved Category (UR).

(3.) It is now stated by the petitioner that in the Prospectus, there were only 5 categories of communities, namely, Un Reserved (UR), Other Backward Caste (OBC), Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Person with Disabilities (PWD). There was no category or column for Backward Caste mentioned in the bulletin. Therefore, the petitioner had selected the Column Un-Reserved (UR). The NEET PG 2017 Examination is conducted by the Educational Board of Examination for the States and Universities to use marks scored by a candidate and as per the reservation policy. In the prospectus Clause 14.6 and Clause 14.7 deal with the types of results for All India Quota, State/Union Territory Quota, Private Medical Universities, Institutions and Colleges and publication of results therefor. Clause 13.1 deals with reservation for All India 50% quota seats. Clause 14.1 deals with the Qualifying Criteria for different categories of candidates as detailed below: