RAS MASUD Vs. STATE OF J&K

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a batch of ten Writ Petitions filed by 14 petitioners praying for a writ of certiorari in order to quash the admission of the respondents selectees to the Government Medical College, Srinagar, and for a direction that the petitioners case may be considered and they may be admitted to the said college. Since all the petitions involve common questions of law and fact and identical arguments have been advanced by the counsel for the petitioners we propose to decide the petitions by one common judgment which will govern all the writ petitions. The petitions arise in the following circumstances. Pursuant to a notice of respondent No. 2. Principal, Medical College Srinagar, the petitioners and the selectee respondents in each of the petitions submitted their applications for admission to the M.B.B.S, course first year of the Government Medical College for the Session 1972 -73. The case of the petitioners is that they fulfilled all the requisite qualifications and submitted their applications in the prescribed form and the prescribed time. After their applications were processed by the office, the petitioners as also the respondents -selectees in the petition were called for interview and they appeared before a Selection Committee appointed by the State comprising Dr. S. Naseer Ahmad Shah, Dr. Anand, Dr. JD Sharma, Dr. Shah and Mrs. Sajida Z. Ahmad. The petitioners allege that the final decision made by the Selection Committee was based on personal considerations and was not objective in character. The petitioners were asked casual questions for a few minutes and within such a short time they were awarded marks at the interview which did not reflect their real merit. It has further been argued before us that by plumping up marks under the various items of the interview the Selection Committee sought to convert merit into demerit and vice versa. The petitioners, therefore, allege that the selections made by the Committee were violative of Art. 14 of the Constitution of India and therefore must be struck down.

(2.) THE State has resisted the petitions mainly on the ground that the Committee consisted of very eminent doctors and the Director of Education, that all the members of the Committee duly interviewed the candidates and that after considering their over -all merit and suitability made the selections in accordance with the Government order constituting the Committee. A proforma has been submitted by the first respondent which is attached to the reply affidavits in all the petitions showing the actual marks allotted to the petitioner and the respondents selectees in the petition. It was further alleged by the State that the Committee had reserved 50 marks for interview which were itemised as follows: - Physical fitness, personality, aptitude and general knowledge. Equal marks were allotted to each of these items, i.e. 12.5 each. Apart from this, 100 marks were allotted for the academic merit and every candidate was awarded the percentage which he had secured in the theory of the last qualifying examination. After adding the total marks awarded to each candidate at the interview to the percentage secured by him in his last qualifying examination, the grand total was arrived at and selection was made purely in order of merit so far as the grand total is concerned. A chart shows the names of the petitioners, the percentage of marks secured by them at the last qualifying examination in theory (excluding the practicais), the marks awarded to the candidates at the interview item wise and the grand total secured by each candidate.

(3.) IT has not been disputed before us by the petitioners that the respondents selectees had secured a higher grand total than the petitioners and therefore prima facie, the selections appear to have been made in order of merit. The main plank of argument of the petitioners, however, was that the Committee did not act in a bona fide manner and tried to plump up marks at the interview of the selectees with a view to reducing the grand total which the petitioners would have otherwise secured as against the respondents selectees who had obtained lesser aggregate marks than the petitioners and thus merit was completely ignored. Reliance was placed on a recent decision of the Supreme Court in A. Pariakarappan V. State of T. N. AIR 1971 SC 2308. We have gone through this authority and we are convinced that it is clearly distinguishable from the facts and circumstances of the present cases. In the case before the Supreme Court: (Supra), there appears to have been many infirmities. In the first place while awarding marks at the interview no items were fixed at all nor were the marks equally divided. Dwelling on this aspect of the matter their Lordships observed as follows: - "We may note that the Committee had not divided the interview marks under various heads nor were the marks given on itemized basis. The marks list produced before us shows that the marks were given in a lump. This is clearly illegal." It appears that their Lordships were impressed by the argument that the academic merit was not properly considered by the Committee. That, however, is not the case here. The various items constituting the interview were allotted equal marks and only 50 marks were kept for the interview whereas 100 marks were reserved for academic merit. By awarding the percentage obtained by each candidate at the last qualifying examination in theory out of the 100 marks, the Committee kept the academic merit of the candidates in view. Furthermore we find that in the instant cases the Committee consisted of eminent doctors and the Director of Education who are not supposed to indulge in manipulations to favour one candidate or the other. A similar argument was advanced before .the Supreme Court in Parikaruppan v. State of T. N. (Supra) which was repelled by their Lordships in the following words: - "We cannot believe that any responsible Government would stop to manipulating marks. The Selection Committee consisted of eminent persons. Most of them are medical practitioners occupying responsible positions in life. It would be a bad day for this country if such persons take to manipulations of marks. Hence we cannot accept the contention that the interview marks were manipulated either by the Government or by the Selection Committee." In this case their Lordships endorsed the decision in Chitralekha v. State of Mysore, AIR 1964 SC 1823. This decision was fully considered by a Full Bench of this Court in Subash v. Principal M. C. A. I. R. 1967 J&K 106 wherein I wrote the leading judgment. Similar arguments addressed before the Full Bench were over -ruled and in describing the manner in which a fair and objective selection could be made we observed as follows: - "It seems to us that the selection of the candidates in technical institutions such as Medical College in the present case, in order to be fair, scientific and objective, may be made in any of the following ways: - (a) Either the candidates may be selected purely on the basis of aggregate secured by them at the last qualifying examination with or without any interview. This mode of selection may, however, be subject to the reservation for certain class of citizens as laid down by Art. 29 sub -cl. (2) of the Constitution of India, but should not exceed the permissible limits of these provisions as held by us in AIR 1966 J&K 101. (b) Or by holding an interview by a Committee consisting of highly qualified persons and adding the marks allotted at the interview to the aggregate secured by the candidates in the last qualifying examination and selecting them in order of merit thus disclosed. (c) Or by holding interview of only those candidates by a Committee consisting of highly qualified persons, who have secured a particular percentage of marks in the last qualifying examination and allotting marks at the interview for various counts where the academic merit of the candidates as revealed by their performances in the last qualifying examination is given due weight and consideration. If any of these modes of selection is resorted to, the court of law cannot find fault with the selection made in accordance with such a mode." In the instant cases the third alternative which was spelt out by us in the Full Bench decision (Supra) has been followed by the Selection Committee and appears to be quite objective in nature. This case was relied upon by a later Division Bench decision of this Court in Shamim Akhtar v. State of J&K, (1971) J&K LR 1, 59 wherein the Division Bench upheld the stand of the Government that for the purpose of considering the academic merit of the candidates the marks secured in the practical examination should not be taken into consideration. It was however strongly contended by the petitioners that the way in which the Committee awarded marks at the interview under various items shows that there was no objective selection. In this connection reference was made to the cases of Hira Lal, Vijay Kumar and Vinod Kumar who having obtained over 60 per cent marks in the aggregate of the last qualifying examination were allotted only 2 to 5 marks for aptitude and General Knowledge. It was suggested that if these petitioners were candidates of such outstanding merit, there was no logic or reasons why they should have been awarded low marks for aptitude and General Knowledge. We are, however, unable to agree with this argument. The Committee at the interview was guided by several considerations, namely merit, suitability, personality, general knowledge etc. and it is not for this Court to substitute its assessment for that of the Committee, regarding the awarding of marks under the various items constituting the interview. The Committee interviewed the petitioners and its membership were the best judges of the various items under which the interview was divided. All that the courts have to see is whether or not the selections have been made in pursuance of the Government Order and are objective in character. We find that these two requisite are fully satisfied in the mode and method adopted by the Committee in arriving at their conclusion. It was then contended that the tests of physical fitness and general knowledge were wholly irrelevant and therefore they vitiated the selections. We are, however, not in a position to accept this argument. It is true that in the Supreme Court case -A Beriakaruppan v. State of T. N. their Lordships have mentioned as to what would be irrelevant matters and in this connexion they observed as follows: - "The interview held was also vitiated for the reason that the Selection Committee took into consideration irrelevant matters and at the same time failed to take into consideration matters required to be taken into consideration. In the counter -affidavit filed by the Chairman of the Selection Committee it was averred that in allotting interview marks the Committee took into consideration qualities such as pleasant personality, quick thinking etc. One of the extra -curricular activities which the Committee was required to take into consideration was NCC training. That was clearly an objective test but from the counter -affidavits filed, it appears that the Committee did not think that it was sufficient if an applicant had good record as a cadet, but according to it, he must also know why he joined the NCC and what role NCC plays in the national life. These in our opinion, are irrelevant considerations. Again the test like the physical condition and endurance can be best judged by a competent medical practitioner after a careful medical examination.  "It is clear from the affidavit filed on behalf of the Selection Committees that at the time of interview much attention had not been given to the general ability which test includes past performance of the applicants and the varied interest taken by them." (See Pp. 2308 -2309 of the Reports). A persual of the observations of their Lordships (Supra) clearly shows that what were considered to be irrelevant matters were things like pleasant personality, quick thinking etc. So far as NCC training is concerned, their Lordships held that this was" undoubtedly an objective test. The High Court in that case, however, while taking into consideration the question of NCC training were guided by factors as to why the candidate concerned joined the NCC etc. which according to their Lordships of the Supreme Court were totally irrelevant to the issue. This is, however, not the position here. The item of the interview was not pleasant personality but only personality which in our opinion is a very wide term which includes the general suitability of the candidate from the point of view of various attributes that he may possess. So far as NCC training is concerned, that was not considered in these cases at all. Therefore the observations of their Lordships of the Supreme Court are of no assistance to the petitioners. It was next argued that it was not possible for the Selection Committee to have determined the physical fitness of the petitioners merely by having a look at them. The chart annexed to the judgment clearly shows that all the petitioners have secured 50% to 60% marks in physical fitness, and we do not see how they can have any grievance on this score, because most of the petitioners have secured as many as 8 marks which would mean that they have secured above 66% marks. The respondent No. 1 in his reply affidavit has clearly alleged that the petitioners were thoroughly interviewed, the Committee had all their certificates before it and after perusing the certificates and considering their academic merit, personality and other factors they awarded marks itemwise. It has not been proved in the instant cases that the Committee awarded marks for physical fitness by merely having a look at the candidates.