B PRAVEENA DEVI Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE writ petitioner challenges a portion of the prospectus issued by the respondents 1 to 3 for admission to MBBS/BDS for academic session 2009-2010, that is, paras 1 and 2 of Appendix III and also for direction to the respondents to consider the academic achievements among the candidates falling under each category of sports or in the alternative to take into account the achievement in all the tournaments during the years 2005 to 2009 and make selection.

(2.) THE said Appendix III relates to the selection of candidates under quota for eminent sports persons. THE portions of the said Appendix impugned are clauses 1 and 2 which are as follows:

(3.) SHE has stated that she secured one gold medal in 2007-08, two silver medals during 2006-07 and 2008-09 and one bronze medal in 2005-06. Therefore, as per the other terms of the prospectus if the achievements of the petitioner in four years are taken into consideration, she would be entitled for 7195 marks, however, if the impugned provisions are applied, that is, if only one annual tournament is taken into account, she would be getting only 600 marks. If the tournaments for four preceding years are taken into consideration, she would be selected surely under the quota, eminent sportsmen category. In these circumstances, the said impugned portion of the prospectus is challenged on various legal grounds including that the eminence at all levels, viz., International, National, Zonal, Divisional levels should be taken into consideration altogether and among such persons, the persons with higher marks in academic examinations alone are entitled for selection, as per the judgment of the Supreme Court reported in Asif Hameed vs. State of Jammu & Kashmir [(1989) Supp (2) SCC 364] and therefore, the impugned provision is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. Even if the first impugned clause is acceptable, the second clause is irrational since even in respect of eminent sports persons only one tournament is taken into consideration for awarding marks. According to the petitioner, if one tournament is taken into consideration, it would be irrational in not taking into account the number of achievements by a candidate for the past four years and restricting it to only one tournament which is the highest achievement. Such concept would result in a person with lesser sports achievements getting selected. Taking into consideration only the participation in International tournaments and marks awarded therein is grossly arbitrary since the same may result in denial of seat to participation in National and State level sportsmen who secured distinction and gold or silver medals.