DINESH Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner hails from village Akroura, Tehsil and District Bahraich in the State of Uttar Pradesh and ordinarily resides there. He belongs to Dhobi Caste which is one of the Scheduled Castes as per the certificate issued by the District Magistrate, Bahraich. He passed the 10+2 examination of Haryana State Education Board from Yamunanagar in the year 1992 and was eligible for admission to the Ist year Degree Course of Engineering in any of the State colleges. On the basis of his merit in the Common Entrance Test he was given admission to the engineering course in the discipline of Mechanical Engineering in Chhotu Ram State College of Engineering, Murthal (Sonepat) (for short, 'the college'). It may be mentioned that the petitioner was admitted to the Regional Engineering College, Kurukshetra as well but he preferred to join the college where he got the branch of his choice. He had been selected against a seat reserved for scheduled castes on the basis of the certificate issued to him by the District Magistrate, Bahraich. At the time of admission, he was told to produce a scheduled caste certificate from a Revenue Authority from Haryana by 8.9.1992 failing which his admission would be cancelled. The petitioner had produced the certificate which was issued to him by the District Magistrate, Bahraich. Since he did not produce a scheduled caste certificate from any revenue authority in Haryana, his admission was sought to be cancelled. He then filed the present petition under Article 226 of the Constitution alleging that as per the prospectus issued by the College for admission to B.E./B.Arch, Degree Courses 1992-93, a candidate belonging to a scheduled caste was required to mention in his/her application that he/she was a scheduled caste candidate and was also required to submit a certificate in the prescribed form in Annexure-I to the prospectus which he did and that there was no requirement of producing a certificate from any revenue authority from Haryana. Since candidates lower in merit than the petitioner had been admitted, the Motion Bench directed the respondents to grant provisional admission to the petitioner at his own risk and responsibility and subject to the final decision in the writ petition.

(2.) In the written statement filed on behalf of the respondents, it is admitted that the petitioner appeared in the Common Entrance Test held for all the colleges in the State and that he had produced a scheduled caste certificate issued by the District Magistrate, Bahraich (U.P.). It is further stated that the caste of the petitioner is Dhobi which has not been declared a scheduled caste by the Haryana Government and, therefore, the petitioner was required to produce a certificate from a revenue authority from Haryana. Since the petitioner failed to produce such a certificate he was not eligible for the course.

(3.) I have heard counsel for the parties. Before I deal with the rival contentions of the parties, it would be worthwhile to notice the relevant provisions contained in the prospectus for admission to the academic year 1992-93 and they are as under :-