Introduction
Court: Karnataka High Court
Title of Case: Dr. R.R. Patil And Etc. Etc. vs State Of Karnataka And Ors.
Date: 20 December, 2001
Equivalent citations: AIR2002KANT211, ILR2002KAR300, 2003(4)KARLJ331, AIR 2002 KARNATAKA 211, 2002 AIR – KANT. H. C. R. 799, (2002) ILR (KANT) (1) 300, (2003) 4 KANT LJ 331, (2003) 2 ESC 880
Author & Bench: A.V. Srinivasa Reddy
Legal Issue:
The main question was whether the college Managements are entitled to device and adopt their own individual yardsticks of determining the inter se merits of candidates appearing for the courses and give admissions to them as per their choice, or, they are mandatorily bound to adhere to the norms and procedure statutorily laid down by the University Grants Commission (UGC), Medical Council of India (MCI) or the Dental Council, of India (DCI), as the case may be? Court based various submissions dealt with following issue:
- Whether legislative field comprised in Entry 66 of List I (Union List) of the 7th Schedule to the Constitution empowers the Parliament to make laws providing for regulating the procedure for admissions to the courses of higher education?
- Whether the laws made pursuant to Entry 66 List-I by the Parliament and its delegate has paramount over State laws and consequently the latter becomes void to the extent of inconsistency/repugnancy?
- If the answer to question 1 is found to be affirmative, whether UGC, MCI, and DCI have the competence to make regulations providing procedure for admission to PG Course under the respective enabling legislations?
- If there be any conflict in the Regulations framed by the UGC on one hand and MCI or DCI on the other hand, then which has to prevail?
- Whether there is, in fact any operational conflicts between the Regulations framed by the respective statutory bodies constituted under the Central Acts?
- Whether the State Government has the power to allot quotas to the managements of private Medical and Dental Colleges for admitting students to P.G. course and if so whether it can be filled by them at their own discretion?
Facts of the Connected Matters
UGC, MCI and DCI are statutory bodies established under Parliamentary laws are University Grants Commission Act, 1956 (UGC Act), Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 (MCI Act) and the Dentists Act. 1948 (Dentist Act) respectively. These bodies have framed regulations for fulfilling their functions. In this case Court was required to determine the impugned rights of the private managements to admit students at their discretion. Constitutional validity of certain provisions have also been raised by petitioners in this matter.
Various Connected Matters
WP no. No. 30353/2001 was filed as a Public Interest Litigation (PIL). Petitioner was Principal of various colleges. He alleged that the Managements of private medical colleges have been giving admission to Post Graduate courses (PG courses) to the desiring candidates by charging heavy capitation fees in flagrant violation of all statutorily prescribed norms and procedure with active connivance of the State Government and had been unjustly enriching themselves at the cost of standard of education, fairness, moral values and social needs. The petitioner emphasized for need of offering the higher and super specialty courses only to most deserving candidates based on their academic achievements and not on their economic power and manipulative skills.
WP No. 38811/2001 had been filed as PIL by a professional doctor raising similar grievances and prayed for quashing of Government Notification Dt. 25-8-2001 providing for 80% management quota in medical and dental PG courses and to direct the respondent dental colleges to admit students strictly in accordance with the Regulations, framed by UGC.
WP no. 35491/2001 had been filed by BLDE Associations B M Patil Medical College challenging validity of Regulation 9 of the “Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2000” (PGMER-2000) UGC regulations have no application in these colleges.
Stand of the Private Managements
It is admitted fact that the managements of private medical and dental colleges had gave admissions in PG in respect of quota allotted to them by the State Government by violating Regulations determining merit and admission procedure under Central Acts. As per submissions private managements had absolute right of devising their own method of determining merit at time of admission in respect of allotted quota and conduct admissions through their self-constituted selection committees.
Stand of the University
Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Bangalore (RGUHSB), established under Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences Act, 1994 (RGUHS Act), is the only University in Karnataka, which is empowered to affiliate health science colleges. As per Registrar of RGUHSB, there were 17 medical colleges in Karnataka which conduct PG and Diploma courses comprising of total number of 1240 seats. Out of these 17, 4 colleges are Government Colleges, and had capacity of 385 seats in total. In case of Dental science, there were 13 colleges including one government college. All these dental colleges had capacity of 321 PG Seats including 21 seats in Government College.
As per Government Order, RGUHSB conducted entrance test on 1-7-2001 for filling all seats in government colleges and 20% seats in private colleges i.e. 526 and 81 seats in private medical and dental colleges respectively. In this test 4724 medical and 1306 dental candidates had appeared. Due to PILs the ranking list based on the entrance test could not be finalized till 19.10.2001.
As Vice-Chancellor of RGUHSB, calendar of events was published by RGUHSB by its notification Dt. 3-7-2001, providing the last date of admission and commencement of the PG Courses, but due to PILs and other connected matters, new circular Dt. 29-9-2001 was published declaring that fresh calendar of events will be issued in terms of orders of the Court in these matters. Due to this no seats have been allotted to any candidate and therefore PG courses had not commenced till 11-12-2001.
RGUHSB submitted that all the seats in PG have to be filled in accordance with UGC Regulations. There is no inconsistency in the rules and regulations of UGC, MCI and DCI as they all intended to achieve excellence in higher education by selecting best among eligible.
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