JUDGMENT

KRISHNA IYER, J.:— The Universities in the country are often among the contributories to the flood of litigation in the higher courts of the country. This pathological condition, to which the present bunch of appeals bears testimony, must claim the healing attention of the nations educational leadership. The four appeals before us present challenges to the scheme of admission to post-graduate courses in medicine in the college of the Kerala State. But since that State is not alone in the tendency to temporise with constitutional values and writ petitions for college admissions are almost a hardy annual, we deem it our duty to permit ourselves a few preliminary observations before proceedings to the fact-situation and conflict-resolution.

2. Principled policy, consistent with constitutional imperatives (Articles 14 and 15) must guide admissions to courses in higher professional education but Governments and Universities, not infrequently take liberties with this larger obligation under provincial pressures and institutional compulsions and seek asylum in reluctant pragmatism mindless of hostility to constitutionality. Nothing is more harrowing for the Court, over-burdened with increasing litigation and thereby forced into slow motion, and unwilling to intervene in an administrative area, than to hamper the strategic stages of educational processes like admissions and examinations, but the Justice System cannot run away from hearing and deciding questions of unconstitutionality, especially when educational authorities shape policies, change rules and make peace with the crisis of the hour, ignorging the parameters of the National Charter. We make these observations driven by the painful experience of facing this situation year after year, from State after State. If higher education bids farewell to national vision and equal opportunity - the two fundamental criticisms levelled before us in these cases - what hope is there for constitutionalism save surrender to provincialism and lobby power, leaving the fortunes of students of advanced learning to litigative astrology annually? A national consensus on this issue is long overdue and we venture to suggest that the Union of India will actively involve the academic community and the States and put the problem on the urgent national agenda and reach solutions constitutionally permissible and agreeable to the genius of the States vis-a-vis post-graduate courses. No State nor University can despite the Constitution nor leave in inglorious uncertainty or myopic ad hocism the career of its talented human resosurces.

3. Back to the facts. The Kerala State runs three medical colleges with post-graduate degree and diploma courses in two of its Universities (Trivendrum and Calicut). The selection is made from among candidates guided by the prospectus issued in this behalf of the Selection Committee makes the selection, the Principal of the Medical College, Trivendrum, being the conveyer thereof. A notification inviting applications was published in the Gazette dated 27-2-1979 wherein the last date for receipt of applications was set down as March 31, 1979. Candidates were considered on the basis of their merit, but the concept of merit was broadened in such manner that marks were allotted for various attributes including military service, membership of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes, and, more relevant to the point raised in the present case, holding of medical diplomas. One of the post-graduate courses offered by two of the colleges is in Ophthalmology and we are concerned directly with the competitive claims among the candidates for this course only. Right at the outset, we wish to make it clear that we confine ourselves to the comparative merits of the candidates for the post-graduate degree course in Ophthalmology and do not wish to disturb any other course last there should be upsets beyond what we intend.

4. The competitive marks admittedly provided for 10 to diploma holders in