*88 students directed to deposit Rs 10,000 each
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Nov 17: Holding the Jammu-based private Dental College guilty of making admissions in violation of Dental Council of India (DCI) Regulations, State High Court has passed severe strictures against the Union Government for ignoring the directions of the Supreme Court of India while granting permission for setting up the institute and making admissions for Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) course.
In terms of Dental Council of India Regulations read with notification dated October 3, 2006 issued by the Institute of Dental Sciences at Sehora established under the Trikuta Charitable Trust, 50 seats out of intake capacity of the institute were to be filled up from amongst the candidates recommended by the Board of Professional Entrance Examination (BOPEE) and rest of the seats—50 were to be filed up by the institute by conducting a “competitive entrance examination”.
However, the institute by admitting 88 out of 100 students on its own without conducting any common entrance examination violated the Dental Council of India Regulations.
In 35 pages judgement, Justice Hasnain Massodi has observed, “the admission of 88 out of 100 candidates made by the petitioner institute during the 2006-07 academic session in violation of the Dental Council of India Regulations as also directions embodied in various authoritative pronouncements on the subject, is illegal and liable to be set-aside”.
Besides passing severe remarks against the institute, the High Court also put the Union Government in the dock and observed, “the Centre Government ought not to have granted permission to the Trikuta Charitable Trust on September 28, 2006 to establish the Dental Institute with intake capacity of 100 students in the academic session of 2006-07 and asked the institute to complete the admissions by September 30, 2006”, adding “the Centre Government ought to have realized that in terms of directions given by the Apex Court in Mridul Dhar and Another Versus Union of India case in 2005 and cases that came up before the court thereafter, the deadline for completing admission process was September 30 in a calendar year and that it would be impossible for the petitioner institute to adhere to the guidelines laid down in Islamic Academy of Education Versus State of Karnataka and P A Inamdar Versus State of Maharashtra cases while making admission”.
“The permission for setting up the institute and making admissions ought to have been deferred to the next academic session 2007-08”, Justice Massodi further observed, adding “the authorities at the helm of affairs in the concerned Ministry of the Central Government owe an explanation for delay and also for according permission only two days before deadline for admission was to end”.
The High Court further said, “the petitioner institute is not in any manner least guilty of the breach committed by it. It ought to have deferred the admissions to the next academic year or made good use of the extension granted by the Central Government vide its communication dated October 10, 2006 in making admissions up to October 15, 2006. The petitioner institute had time, though it was to proceed on rollercoaster speed, to make admissions in accordance with Dental Council of India Regulations”.
Observing that out of 88 candidates, 32 had less than 60 per cent marks in 10+2 and 19 candidates even less than 55 per cent marks, the High Court said, “the medical profession is a noble profession and to acquire excellence it demands a very high caliber and requirement to treat merit alone as the basis for the selection for admission to a Medical College. In the words of Supreme Court, to maintain high standard of education as also uniformity of standard the right to select the candidates for professional course cannot be left to the discretion of the management of a professional college”.
“The effort must be to find out one single standard, for all the institutions admitting candidates for the course, that enables them to join the medical profession”, Justice Massodi said, adding “it needs no emphasis that once it is left to the total discretion of management of an institute, aided or un-aided, minority or non-minority, to make admissions at its level, there is every chance that greed may overtake the objectivity and the management of professional institute may resort to profiteering at the cost of the merit. The candidates passing out from such professional institute would not be well equipped to do justice to their profession and serve public at large”.
“The Dental Council of India Regulations framed with the previous sanction of the Central Government are statutory in character and warrant adherence in letter and spirit. The Regulations can for no reason be treated as advisory or recommendatory in character and are to be adhered to for achieving highest standards in medical education”, the High Court said.
With these observations and strictures, the High Court has directed the petitioner institute to surrender 14 seats from its management quota in each of the academic years 2013 and 2014 (total 28 seats) to BOPEE so that the admissions against such seats are made from the meritorious students, who appear in Common Entrance Test to be conducted by BOPEE in 2013-14.
The institute has also been directed to deposit an amount of Rs 14 lakh—Rs 50,000 out of the fee collected from each of the 28 candidates admitted over and above the management quota with Jammu and Kashmir Legal Services Authority.
“The amount so deposited shall be spent by the Authority on organizing legal literacy programmes for schedule caste, schedule tribe and other under-privileged sections of the society in the State as per proposal approved by Executive Chairman, State Legal Services Authority”, the High Court said.
The beneficiaries of the admission have been directed to deposit Rs 10,000 each with the Registrar Judicial and the amount will be given in equal proportion to three institutes—Blind School for Boys, Jammu run by Social Welfare Department, Blind School for Girls run by National Federation of Blind, J&K Chapter and Anath School run by Ved Mandir Committee for improving facilities for visually impaired students enrolled in these institutions.
About the fate of beneficiaries of admission, Justice Massodi said, “the students, who responded to the advertisement notice though not completely innocent, are least responsible for late permission granted by the Central Government and irregularity in the admission process committed by the petitioner institute”, adding “the court is under a constitutional obligations to secure justice to the justice seekers that come before it and cannot lose sight of the fact that the students enrolled were by and large innocent without any significant role in the irregularity made”.
“It would be unjust and unfair to cancel their admission after they have been on the rolls of the petitioner institute for six long years and are said to have completed their BDS courses including internship”, the High Court observed and directed Jammu University to grant registration of the students admitted by the petitioner institute for BDS course in the academic year 2006 so that the students who have successfully completed the course are in a position to obtain their degrees, subject to the fulfillment of conditions.
Advocate W S Nargal appeared on behalf of Jammu University while as Senior Advocate K S Johal with Advocate Shahla Rafiqi appeared for the petitioner institute while as Senior Advocate Sunil Sethi with Advocate Raj Kumar Gupta appeared on behalf of affected students.
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