MEENAKSHI KOCHHER Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner in response to a prospectus published for admission to the Bachelor of Engineering course (for short called the course) at Government Engineering College, Bhatinda, Regional Engineering College, Jalandhar and other Engineering Colleges, applied for admission to the said course for which a competitive examination was conducted by Guru Dev University, Amritsar. The Government of Punjab by letter dated Aug. 28, 1987, Annexure P-5 reserved 2% of seats for admission to the course in favour of wards of the serving staff of Technical Education Department. The petitioner applied for admission to the course against this 2% reservation being the daughter of Shri C.L. Kochher, Head of Department of Civil Engineering in Mehar Chand Polytechnic, Jalandhar. She secured 118 marks in the joint competitive examination conducted by the University for admission to the said course. She was interviewed and placed at serial number 4 in the merit list Annexure P-7, meant for children of serving staff but was not granted admission though candidates lower in merit than her, i.e. mentioned at serial numbers 5, 8 and 10 were admitted to the course. The action of respondents 1 to 3 in denying admission to the petitioner and admitting candidates below her in order of merit compelled her to file the present writ petition.

(2.) The writ petition came up for motion hearing on Nov. 17, 1989 when the following order was passed :

(3.) Joint written statement has been filed on behalf of respondents 1 and 2 and a separate written statement has been filed on behalf of respondent No. 3. The broad stand taken by the two sets of respondents for denying admission to the petitioner is that she was not eligible for admission to the course against 2% seats reserved for the wards of serving staff of Regional Engineering College, Jalandhar/Technical Education Department, Punjab as her father, employed in Mehar Chand Polytechnic Jalandhar, which was a privately managed institution and thus, was not covered under the reserved category and the facility of reservation of 2% of seats was available to the ward's of the Government staff of Technical Education Department. It was further averred that candidates mentioned at serial numbers 5, 8 and 10 were granted admission on the basis of their inter se merit as they were the wards of serving staff of the Regional Engineering College/Technical Education Department, Punjab. It was thus, denied that any candidate lower in merit than the petitioner was granted admission.