ABODHA KUMAR MOHAPATRA Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN these writ petitions analogously heard some student candidates including two lady students as applicants for admission during the Medical Colleges in Orissa during the year 1968 relying on a Notice dated June 22, 1968 issued by the Principal, S. C. B. Medical College, Cuttack and published in the Orissa Gazette dated June 28, 1968, fixing the criteria for determination of merit of candidates eligible for selection and inviting applications for admission to the Medical Colleges - challenge the legality of the letter dated August 14, 1968 issued by the Government of Orissa in the Department of Health and Family Planning. It is said that by this impugned letter the Government issued certain executive instructions which had the effect of eliminating many otherwise qualified candidates by a process of unreasonable discrimination, regionwise selection of candidates, and making special provisions for lady students retrospectively thereby altering, to the detriment of the candidates who had already applied, the very basis of selection as originally represented in the Notice inviting applications for admission, issued by the Principal, S. C. B. Medical College, Cuttack, on June 22, 1968. This letter of August 14, 1968 is challenged by the petitioners as unconstitutional, as affecting their fundamental rights and also otherwise illegal. For brevity, the Notice of June 22, 1968 is hereinafter referred to as "the notice" and the letter of Government dated August 14, 1968 as "the impugned Government letter".

(2.) AS in the previous years, during the present year (1968) the Principal, S. C. B. Medical College, Cuttack, as chairman of Selection Board for selection of candidates for admission into the Medical Colleges issued the Notice inviting applications for admission to the Medical Colleges in the State - S. C. B. Medical College, Cuttack, Burla Medical College and Medical College, Berhampur - all run by the Government of Orissa. The Notice specified the conditions for eligibility including the basis of merit as determined by the marks in science subjects, reservation of a limited number of seats for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, the nominees of the Government of India and other State Governments; the minimum educational qualification required was a pass in the science subjects Physics, Chemistry and Biology (Botany and Zoology) in the qualifying examination i.e. I. Sc. or Pre-Professional examination or in examination recognised, as equivalent thereto. In paragraph 16 hereinafter quoted read with paragraph 2 it was clearly represented that the selection of candidates will be made on the basis of merit determined by marks in the Science subjects (Medical group only) in the qualifying examination. It was also represented that additional weightage of marks would be given for candidates who have passed B. Sc., the rate of percentage of weightage varying according to the Class (First Class, Second Class, Distinction or Pass as the case may be); provision was also made for deduction of marks for each previous failure in the qualifying examination - all as fully stated in paragraph 16 of the Notice. The last date for receipt of the applications in the office of the Principal S. C. B. Medical College, Cuttack, was fixed as July 10, 1968 as stated in paragraph 15 of the Notice. The last date for application was later on extended to July 20, 1968. The Index Register of the candidates prepared by the concerned authorities shows that 1497 students applied for admission.

(3.) THE said provision in the impugned Government letter relating to regionwise classification is also attacked as violative of Article 15(1) of the Constitution in so far as it makes a discrimination solely on the basis of place of birth as contended in paragraph 25 (j) of O. J. C. No. 823 of 1968 filed on August 20, 1968. Neither in counter-affidavit dated August 26, 1968 filed therein by the Under Secretary to the Government of Orissa, Health Department, nor in any of the four successive counter-affidavits in O. J. C. No. 815 of 1968 (which were adopted as counters to the other writ petitions, all analogously heard) filed on behalf of the opposite parties on August 22, 23, 26 and 29, 1968, the specific averment that the impugned Government letter creates discrimination solely on the basis of place of birth made in the aforesaid paragraph 25(j) of the petition in O. J. C. No. 823 of 1968 was denied or refuted. Thus, there having been no denial of the allegation made in paragraph 25(j) of the petition in O. J. C. No. 823 of 1968 that the discrimination has been made solely on the basis of place of birth, that allegation must be taken to have been admitted by the opposite parties.