JUDGMENT

DESAI, J.:—As the matter brooked no delay. at the conclusion of the arguments, the Court pronounced the following, order reserving reasons to be given at a later date.

"The petitions succeed to the extent herein indicated. Let a writ be issued quashing reservation of 25 seats in favour of candidates coming from Rural Areas and educated in Common Rural School for admission to MBBS Course 1982 at Medical College, Rohtak affiliated to Maharishi Dayanand University. Consequently the respondents are directed to admit in 1st MBBS Course of the same College commencing from July, 1983, such number of students who secured admission against the reservation for candidates coming from Rural Areas and educated in Common Rural School in 1982, according to the general merit list drawn up in respect of candidates, who sought admission and in the absence of such a list, a waiting list should be drawn up according to merits, for the year 1982. The respondents are directed to work out the admission as per the direction herein made before May 31, 1983 and give intimation to the students who become eligible for admission.

There will be no order as to costs. Reasons to follow."

Here are the reasons.

2. In this group of petitions under Art. 32 of the Constitution. the petitioners questioned the validity and legality of reservation of 25 seats for candidates coming from rural areas for admission to First MBBS/BDS Course for 1982 session in the Medical Faculty of the Third respondent-Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak (University for short). The University issued a prospectus on June 12, 1982 inviting applications for appearing at an Entrance Test for selecting candidates for admission to MBBS/BDS Course, 1982. In this prospectus, reserved seats were shown as under :

"(A) RESERVED SEATS:

Categories No. of Seats

(a) Scheduled Caste/Tribes 30

(b) Rural areas 25

(i) Out of these 5 are reserved for girls, if available, otherwise these will also be for boys.

(ii) For deciding the eligibility of a candidate from rural areas, the following criterion will be observed:

A candidate must have received education from Class I to Class 8 and passed 8th Class examination from a common Rural School situated in any village not having any Municipality or notified area or Town Area Committee. For this purpose a certificate is required to be submitted which may be seen in Appendix C.

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In short out of a total of 148 seats available for admission. 80 seats were to be filled-in according to the merit list drawn-up on the performance at the entrance examination and the rest were reserved for different classes of candidates. The petitioners challenge only the reservation of 25 seats for candidates coming from the rural areas as being violative of Arts. 14, 15 (4) and 29 (2) of the Constitution inasmuch as the classification is arbitrary, unintelligible and unrelated to the objects sought to be achieved and not saved by Art. 15 (4). It was alleged that to classify candidates on the basis of their education in a school in rural area and urban area is irrational inasmuch as before seeking admission to the Medical Faculty even the student coming from rural areas and having been educated in common rural school from 1st to 8th standard would have taken further education for a period of 4 Years before seeking admission to the medical college. It was therefore said that earlier education from 1st to 8th standard either in urban schools or common rural schools both having identical syllabus and examination evaluation prescribed by a common authority is hardly of any relevance while considering the merit for admission to the medical college more so because all students coming either from urban schools or those educated in common rural schools were required to undergo further education for a period of 4 years after the 8th standard in urban schools or schools which can be compared with urban schools. The petitioners contend that the reserva