BISWANATH MURMU Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Being desirous of obtaining Post Graduate degree, the petitioners who are graduate doctors had appeared at the Post Graduate (Medical) Selection, 2001, Orissa which was held for selection of candidates for post Graduate Course in the Government Medical Colleges of Orissa. Unfortunately petitioners 1, 3 and 4 did not qualify in the selection test. Petitioners 2 and 5 having qualified were called for counselling and thereafter taking into consideration their merit position, they were admitted to the P.G. course in General Surgery at the M.K.C.G. Medical College, Berhampur and S.C.B. Medical College, Cuttack respectively. However, being dissatisfied with the allotment of subjects and non-selection, the petitioners by this common petition have approached this Court for issuance of an appropriate writ, direction or order quashing clauses 23-2-1 and 13-2-4 of the Prospectus for post Graduate (Medical) Selection-2002,Orissa (Annexure-2) and for a further direction to the opposite parties to select the petitioners and others in terms of the relevant clauses contained in the Prospectus for selection of candidates for Post Graduate Courses, 2000 (Annexure-1/c) and to maintain the percentage of quote between S.T. and S.C. and not to fill up the unfilled S.T. seats by any category of candidates other than S.T. unless eligible S.T. condidates are not available.

(2.) Before proceeding further, it will be relevant to refer to Clauses 13.1 to 13.4 relating to selection contained in the Prospectus of 2000 and Clauses 13-2-1 to 13-2-4 contained in the Prospectus, 2001 :

(3.) To begin with, it may be stated that the available seats in the Post Graduate Courses are filled up from three categories or sources, namely, All India quota; direct or institutional candidates; and inservice candidates or those serving under the Government, and for each category, fixed number of seats and subjects are ear-marked. In the seats meant for direct and inservice candidates, certain number of seats are reserved for different categories including S.T. and S.C. candidates. In the earlier years, as is the case put forward by the petitioners, the vacant S.C. inservice seats were filled up by eligible S.C. direct candidates and vice versa and the vacant inservice S.T. seats were filled up by direct S.T. candidates and vice versa. It is the case of the petitioners that departing from the earlier practice, the opposite parties in Clause 13.2.1 of the Prospectus for 2001 laid down that in case of non-availability of eligible S.T. (inservice) candidates, the unfilled seats of their quota will be merged with S.C. (inservice) seats and the total seats thus derived shall be filled up by S.C. (inservice) candidates. Further, in clause 13-2-3 it has been laid down that the unfilled S.T. (inservice) and S.C. (inservice) seats, if any, shall be merged with the S.T. (Direct) and S.C. (Direct) seats respectively.According to the petitioners, the aforesaid two provisions are contradictory and need to be quashed. It was further submitted that merging of vacant S.T. inservice seats with the S.C. inservice seats will have the result of reducing the percentage of S.T. candidates to the medical courses which will be to their detriment. Accordingly, it was submitted that the opp. parties were not justified in departing from the previous practice whereunder the vacant S.T. inservice seats were to be filled up by S.T. direct candidates. Had the earlier practice been adopted, all the eleven (11) vacant S.T. inservice seats would have been filled up by S.T. direct candidates as 22 (twenty two) of them had qualified.Inviting the attention of the Court to clause 13-2-4 of the prospectus for 2001, it was submitted that eleven (11) seats were reserved for S.T. inservice and ten (10) seats were reserved for S.T. direct candidates. In all, twentyone (21) seats were available to S.T. candidates for both categories and accordingly, in terms clause 13-2-3, the unfilled S.T. inservice seats, which were admittedly eleven (11) in number, ought to have been mereged with S.T. direct category and if that was done, the S.T. candidates including the petitioners would have been admitted and would have had better choice of subjects. Instead, as submitted by the petitioners, only ninteen (19) seats were offered to the S.T. direct candidates which was not proper.