AMARJEET SINGH CHADHA Vs. STATE OF H.P.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE following interesting and important question arises in this petition: Whether the scheduled caste/scheduled tribe candidates are eligible to be considered for admission to the MDS course on obtaining 40% marks in the entrance test against the seats allocated to all categories or whether this benefit of lower eligibility criteria is available only in respect of seats reserved for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes?

(2.) BRIEFLY stated the facts of the case are that the respondent No. 3 H.P. University conducted the entrance test on behalf of respondent No. 1 State of Himachal Pradesh for admission to various Post Graduate Courses in H.P. Government Dental College and Hospital, Shimla and Himachal Dental College and Hospital, Sundernagar. The relevant provisions of the prospectus issued are quoted hereinbelow:

(3.) 10. In -Service Medical Officers (Dental) will compete amongst themselves and open candidates will compete in their own group in the competitive examination conducted by the University. xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx 4.15. Candidates who obtain less than the following percentage of marks in the entrance test will not be eligible for admission to the Postgraduate courses: (i) General Category/MO (Dental) 50% (ii) Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe 40% 3 Admittedly this year there were no seats reserved for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in both categories i.e. direct category and promotion from Medical Officer (Dental). In all there are four seats in the H.P. Government Dental College and Hospital, Shimla out of which two are reserved for the All India Quota and out of the two available for being filled from local candidates, one seat is allocated for GDOs i.e. in -service candidates and one is for direct candidates. In the H.P. Dental College and Hospital, Sundernagar, the total number of seats are six. There are three seats for the management quota i.e. one seat each in three different specialties. Remaining three seats are to be filled by the State of H.P. on the basis of the entrance test. Out of these three seats, one is reserved for M.O. (Dental) and two for direct candidates. 4 The petitioner belongs to a scheduled caste. He is presently employed as GDO (MO Dental) in the State of Himachal Pradesh. He applied through the Department. In his application against the column "Group applied for, (HPHS/Direct)" he has mentioned "HPHS -I -Gen". In the next column "Category applied for (General/SC/ST)" the words ST have been scored off and the words General and SC have been ticked and it is mentioned "SC, Belong to SC". As per the prevalent practice the forms of in -service candidates i.e. MO (Dental" are scrutinized by the respondent No. 2. The respondent No. 2 forwarded the application of the petitioner to the respondent No. 3 treating him to be a general candidate. The petitioner appeared in the test. After the result was declared he found that though he had scored 86 marks out of 200 i.e. 43% marks, his name was not shown in the list of qualified candidates. According to the petitioner, since he has scored more than 40% marks which is the eligibility requirement in case of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes candidates his name should have been reflected in the merit list under the scheduled castes category. There is only one general category in -service candidate who has qualified the entrance test as against two seats meant for this category.