SAMARTH Vs. PANJAB UNIVERSITY AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner who had applied for admission to professional engineering course in Schedule Caste (SC) category got in the joint entrance test marks above the cut off for counselling for the category of SC. However, when he applied on line for admission to colleges, he treated himself as falling within sports category and sought for admission under such category. He was, therefore, seeking for a consideration on the basis of his gradation obtained in the sports category and wanted in the process to abandon a consideration as SC category candidate. On the basis of gradation, he was ranked 28 in group I institutions and ranked 49 in group II institutions. However, admission was not granted to him since in the manner of reckoning, the University applied the cut off marks for sports category as the cut off marks applicable for general category. The basis was that a person who had applied as SC category but later sought for consideration under sports category could not avail the cut off for SC category.

(2.) The counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner would urge that in the initial application for admission, there were only three categories mentioned, namely, a Common Merit List category (CML), OBC NCL category and SC/ST and all PWD category. The CBSC had announced the cut off marks as 62, 59 and 32 respectively for the three categories mentioned above. The petitioner had applied under the sports category and wanted consideration of his selection on the basis of gradation obtained. This was rejected on the ground that in sport category, reservation applied was horizontal and the minimum marks was what was applied for CML category. The learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner would refer me to para 5.6.2.4 of the Information Brochure of the University that provided for the mode of consideration for selection of sports persons. Para 5.6.2.4 is re-produced as under:

(3.) The counsel would state that the inter-se merit of the candidates seeking admission in sport would be determined only on the basis of their merit in sport as per grading and the proviso requiring their qualification in JE (Main) must be understood as a proviso in the particular main category in which he had applied. This being the area of contention, the counsel for the University would state that the SC and all PWD category will be set apart as being eligible for minimum cut off marks while in sport category, the qualification in the JE (Main) was the marks that had been set up a part for the general category.