SIDHARTH SARANGI Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Each year, there is a Joint Entrance Examination for selection of candidates for admission to the Medical and Engineering Colleges and also there is an Entrance Examination for selection of candidates for admission to Post-Graduate Courses in the Government Medical Colleges of Orissa and each year, these give rise to a number of litigations touching every aspect of the said examinations - the eligibility criteria, the residential requirement, the setting of question papers, the evaluation of answer scripts, the selection process - and with respect to the Post-Graduate Courses - the allotment of a discipline. Hardly ink dries on judgments relating to previous years that fresh crop of litigations comes up. The present writ application is one of such fresh crop.

(2.) This case does not involve any complicated issue. The petitioner says that since the last date of receipt of application forms was 17-10-2000 and the entrance examination is now to be held on the 12th of November, 2000, he should be permitted to appear at the entrance examination as he has completed his rotatory internship/house-manship. Equally, simple is the reply of the opposite parties that the petitioner may have completed the housemanship before the last date of submission of the application form, but he was not eligible as he has not completed the housemanship/internship by the 31st of March, 2000. To this, the reply of the petitioner is that the cut-off date fixed by the authorities is arbitrary, mala fide and with the ulterior motive of denying the petitioner and the other similarly situated candidates to take up the entrance examination. The opposite parties say that the contentions of the petitioner are unfounded, as the 31st of March, 2000 has been fixed as the cut-off date following the precedents and it was wrong to allege that the action of the authorities in fixing the cut-off date is arbitrary or mala fide. The petitioner states that since the object of the entrance examination is to select the best, that object will be frustrated if the petitioner and the others like him are not permitted to take up the entrance examination. Protection is also sought under Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India as, according to the petitioner, he is being denied of an equal opportunity by the action of the opposite parties. This, the opposite parties deny.

(3.) In support to the contentions, reliance was placed by the petitioner on the decisions of the Apex Court in D. S. Nakara v. Union of India, AIR 1983 SC 130, Bhupinderpal Singh v. State of Punjab, (2000) 5 SCC 262 : (AIR 2000 SC 2011) and Pema Ram v. State of Rajasthan, 1982 Lab IC 1291 (Raj).