SOMANATH DWIBEDI Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE alleged wrongful action of the opposite parties in not calling the petitioner for counselling and consequent refusal to give admission in the discipline of Computer Science at College of Engineering, Nayapalli, Bhubaneswar against an open category (Free) seat is the subject -matter of challenge in this writ petition.

(2.) ACCORDING to the petitioner, he passed the High School Certificate examination with aggregate of 85% of marks and the +2 Science Examination in the first division. Thereafter, he joined the +3 Science Stream at the N. C. College, Jajpur. He appeared at the Joint Entrance Examination (Engineering & Medical) -2000 and was at serial No. 2078 (E) in the merit list. It is his case that considering his rank a call letter was issued to him and in response thereto, he duly reported himself for counselling along with the relevant certificates The authorities, however, after going through the certificates, did not allow him to take part in the counselling and exercise his option on an erroneous ground that he had failed to submit the original High School Certificate though, a copy thereof was submitted by him. The action, according to the petitioner, was wholly unjustified which has wrongly deprived him of admission though candidates below him have been admitted.

(3.) THE main contention raised on behalf of the petitioner was that High School Certificate was not necessary for showing the date of birth, as there was other material on record, namely, the provisional certificate -cum -memorandum of marks supplied by the Board of Secondary Education wherein his date of birth was reflected. It was also submitted that in view of Note (i) to Clause -8 of the call letter, the opp. party No. 2 was not justified in refusing to accept the provisional certificate issued by the Board. Thus, according to the petitioner, he had fulfilled the requirement of Clause -8 and, as such, the action of the opp. party No. 2 in not taking him up for counselling was unwarranted and unjustified.