SURINDER KUMAR Vs. PUNJABI UNIVERSITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, who is blind by birth and virtually handicapped, has filed this petition under Arts. 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India for issuing a writ in the nature of mandamus directing the respondents to admit him to B.Ed. Course against one of the reserved seats kept earmarked for physically handicapped persons by the authorities. The petitioner, who is 100 per cent blind, passed his B.A. examination in Ist Division from the Punjab University in the year 1990 and appeared in the Combined Entrance Test held by the Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, on 3-7-1994 for selection of students for admission to B.Ed. Course in the State of Punjab. He obtained 122 out of 250 marks, i.e., 49 per cent marks, as is clear from the result card (Annexure P 3) provided to him. As the petitioner qualified the Combined Entrance Test with good percentage of marks, so he became eligible for admission to B.Ed. Course in any College of Education in the State of Punjab. He submitted his admission form in both the Colleges of Education at Patiala and Faridkot. There were 180 seats available in the Government College of Education, Patiala, and 100 seats in the Government College of Education, Faridkot. According to the prospectuses of both the Colleges, 2 per cent of seats were reserved in each college for the handicapped persons. So, as per the ratio, six seats were available in both the Colleges for the handicapped persons. The petitioner appeared for interview before the Interview Committee at Patiala on 12-8-1994 and at Faridkot on 16-8-1994. Although the petitioner was eligible for admission in B.Ed. Class yet he has not been given admission by the Principals of the said Colleges. On his enquiry, the petitioner was told that, as he is a blind person, therefore, there was no seat available for him although blind persons were earlier provided admission in some of the Colleges. The Principals of both the Colleges refused to provide him admission without any rhyme and reason when they knew that 2 per cent of seats had been reserved for the handicapped persons including blind people as per the Rules of the University. The petitioner, on the one hand, was refused admission on the ground that he is a blind person but, on the other hand, one Bhupinder Singh, a blind student belonging to Rajpura, was given admission in Government College of Education, Patiala, although he possessed lesser merit than that of the petitioner. The petitioner belongs to border area of the State of Punjab and the place, where he is living, falls within ten miles' belt of the Indo-Pak International Border, which has been declared as a border area by the Punjab Government and, in that regard, the certificate issued by the Deputy Commissioner, Ferozpur, is contained in Annexure P4.

(2.) Objections have been filed by the respondent-State and the preliminary objection raised by them was that the petitioner could not produce a certificate from the Chief Medical Officer to show that he can teach students, as being one of the conditions laid down in the prospectuses of both the Colleges. According to the respondents, the petitioner fulfils the eligibility conditions but other aspects are also to be taken into consideration, which they have vaguely raised and have no relevancy to the controversy raised by the petitioner. They have not denied that 2 per cent of seats were kept reserved for the physically handicapped persons and that the petitioner falls in that category.

(3.) We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and also had a thoughtful consideration over the record on the file.