SULOCHANA SHARMA Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) With the consent of learned counsel for parties, the writ petition has been heard finally at this stage itself since contro-versy involved in this matter is in regard to admission in BSTC course.

(2.) The matter pertains to admission in BSTC course. An advertisement was issued by respondents calling for application from eligible candidates. Educational qualifica-tions were provided in column (B). For gen-eral category minimum percentage provided is 45 at the level of Senior Secondary or equivalent qualification. For divorced or widow female candidates, it is provided as 33%. Petitioner, having 44.62%, applied for entrance examination of BSTC. She was al-lowed to appear but, by a corrigendum, re-spondent-State amended the educational qualification making it minimum 50% for general category and 45% for reserve cat-egories at the level of Senior Secondary or equivalent qualification. Criteria has been changed to make it in consonance to the Regulations made by the National Council of Teacher Education (for short 'the NCTE') which were published initially in the year 2007 and superseded by the Regulations of 2009. In the Regulations, minimum educa-tional qualification for general caste category is provided as 50% at the level of Senior Secondary or equivalent examination. 5% relaxation is provided for reserve category candidates. Petitioner's case is that even if Regulations of 2009 are made applicable to the present matter, petitioner is entitled for admission in BSTC course as percentage of marks at the level of Senior Secondary 44.62%, needs to be rounded off. Petitioner has placed reliance on the judgment of this court in the case of Rajul Arora v. Jai Narain Vyas University & Anr., 2006 AIR(Raj) 956; Kumari Praveen v. Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati University & Anr.,2008 WLC(Raj) 775 and lastly relied upon the judgment in the case of State of U.P. and Anr. v. Pawan Kumar Tiwari and Ors., 2005 2 SCC 10. It is submitted that in all these mat-ters, not only earlier judgments were con-sidered but relying on the Division Bench judgment, rounding off the marks were per-mitted as it is based on well accepted norms.

(3.) Learned counsel for respondents, on the other hand, contested the matter. It is stated that corrigendum was issued to make State action in consonance with the Regulations of NCTE. Firstly, by introducing Regulations in 2007 minimum percentage of marks at the level of Senior Secondary was provided as 50% and 45% for reserve categories. Regu-lations of 2007 were superseded by the Regu-lations of 2009, however, educational quali-fication therein has been maintained as it is. Since challenge has not been pressed by learned counsel in regard to corrigendum, the only question requires to be answered is as to whether rounding off the marks is permis-sible in this case or not. This is more so when no provision exist under the Regulations of 2009 to permit rounding off the marks. Re-lying on the judgment of Division Bench in the case of Dr. Rajiv Mangal v. Rajasthan University of Health Sciences & Anr., 2007 AIR(Raj) 186, it is submitted by the respondents that this court has not permitted rounding off marks taking into consideration Regulations applicable therein. It was after referring to the judgment of the Hon'ble Apex Court in the case of State of U.P. & Anr. v. Pawan Kumar, 2005 AIR(SC) 658 so as the Division Bench of this court in the case of Jai Narain Vyas University v. Budha Ram Choudhary (DB) Civil Special Appeal No. 30/2006, decided on 12.1.2006 at Principal Seat, Jodhpur. Since it is a well considered judgment and has taken note of another judgment of Division Bench so as the judgment of Hon'ble Supreme Court, present matter is covered by the aforesaid decision.