The Supreme Court has declared as illegal any last minute changes made by the government in admission norms for the university courses after the already existing rules had been spelt out clearly in the prospectors published by the university.
The top court has emphasised on making the enforcement of this norm by the universities far more strict in the admissions under Central and state quota seats in super-speciality courses, like post-graduate medical education ensure that there was no “manipulation” in the quota clearly demarcated for the central and state governments.
“As per the already laid down rules at the last moment selection for admission should be finalised in the light of the criteria specified in the government order already in force and (spelt out) in the prospectus,” a three-judge bench of Justices Altamas Kabir, Cyriac Joseph and S.S. Nijjar ruled.
The top court further clarified that once the government orders on admission criteria had been included in the prospectus brought out by the university “it is not open to the state government to alter the terms and conditions just a day before counselling has to being”.
This would clearly amount to “denying” fair opportunity to the candidates who had already been selected as per the admission procedure spelt out in the prospectus prepared by the university as per the existing rules as laid down by the government, the top court said.
The government was debarred from “interfering” in the university admissions after publication of the prospectus, apparently to keep the growing “political interference” at bay in view of a large number of such complaints coming to light.
The ruling came on an appeal by six doctors from Haryana led by Parmender Kuamr, whose admission to post-graduate courses in Pandit B.D. Sharma University had landed in trouble due to the last minutes changes in rules made by the state government on the granting of no-objection certificates for serving government doctors for admission under the Haryana civil medical services reserved quota.
As per the new rules laid down after the publication of the prospectors, the six doctors had become ineligible for admission and the Punjab and Haryana high court had approved the government’s last minutes order.
However, the top court set aside the HC verdict and permitted the six doctors to pursue their PG course from the next academic session starting in 2012 as they have already lost one year in fighting the case.