ANEESHA SHARMA Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB AND ORS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner seeks quashing of the action of respondent no. 4- university in reducing the number of seats in the MBBS course in the sports category from 5 to 4. Further direction is accordingly prayed to grant admission to the petitioner who is at Sr. No. 5 in the merit list of the sports category.

(2.) It is the case of the petitioner that she is a National Level Lawn Tennis Player and has done her 10+2 examination from DAV Public School, Lawrence Road, Amritsar. As per the prospectus for PMET-2016, 1% of the total seats for the MBBS course were reserved for sports persons. The 5 reserved seats were accordingly distributed in the Government Medical Colleges for the session 2016 as uploaded by the respondent- University on its website and divided as 2 seats each at Government Medical College, Patiala and Amritsar and 1 seat at Faridkot as per Annexure P-2. The petitioner had secured total percentile of 93.9385628 and as per the gradation certificate (Annexure P-3), she had been put in grade "B" having played in 59th National School Games (U-19) and having obtained 2nd place. As per the grading and merit, the petitioner had been placed at Sr. No. 4. Some other candidate namely one Raghav Sood had come to this Court on account of the fact that his certificate of the international level was not being considered, which would entitle him to "A" gradation and resultantly in view of the directions issued by this Court on 09.08.2016, the merit list had been re-prepared. The said person was accordingly shown at Sr. No. 1 in the merit list and the petitioner was moved down to Sr. No. 5. While reporting for counseling on 28.09.2016, the petitioner was informed that 5 sports seats notified had been reduced to 4 and, therefore, she could not be granted admission. Resultantly, this Court was approached on 30.09.2016 on the ground that the prospectus had been published and released and the University was bound by the same.

(3.) The defence of the State in its reply was that the seats against 1% state quota seats worked out to be 4 against 425 and not 5 seats. The University, in its affidavit, admitted the factum that 5 seats had been distributed and notified vide communication dated 27.06.2016 (Annexure R-1). It was admitted that respondent no.5-the Principal, Government Medical College, Patiala had submitted the seat matrix vide letter dated 27.06.2016 for the session 2016. It was not disputed that as per the said communication, there were 2 seats reserved for the sports person in the said college. Accordingly, reliance was placed upon the conditions of the prospectus that the seats may increase or decrease subject to the orders of the Hon'ble Courts, MCI/DCI/Governments. It is accordingly pointed out that vide letter dated 14.09.2016 (Annexure R-3), the said respondent had submitted the revised distribution of seats. The final distribution had been done on 15.09.2016 and there was only 1 seat at Patiala for sports persons. Resultantly, there were only 4 seats for the sports quota. The reservation was to be calculated at 1% on the State quota seats which were 170 at Patiala and Amritsar each.