JUDGMENT

RANGANATHAN, J,:— Getting an admission into a professional course has become so difficult and competitive of late that litigation instituted by disappointed candidates has become a regular feature. This appeal, arising out of such a context, throws up for consideration certain aspects which call for a difficult exercise in balancing equities, We therefore, proceed to discuss the facts and issues at some length.

2. The appellant Dr. Km. Nilofar Insaf and respondent No. 4, Dr. Devraj Jain were competitors for a single seat in the Masters Degree (M.D.) course in Radiology at Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal. The appellant got admission to this seat in preference to Dr. Jain because she had obtained average marks of 59.60 per cent. in the examinations of the M.B.B.S. course whereas Dr. Jain had obtained only 58.50 per cent. Dr. Jain successfully challenged the admission granted to the appellant in preference to himself in a writ petition in the Madhya Pradesh High Court. Dr. Insaf, who has forfeited her admission in consequence of the judgment of the High Court, has filed the present appeal.

2A. In order to appreciate the circumstances in which the admission granted to the appellant was quashed by the High Court, though she had admittedly got a higher percentage of marks than Dr. Jain, it is necessary to set out a few further facts. Dr. Jain and Dr. Insaf both completed their M.B.B.S. course in the years 1983-87. However, while Dr. Jain had been admitted into and completed that course in the Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal, the appellant had initially joined her M.B.B.S. course in the M.S. Ramayya Medical College, Bangalore, wrote the first examination and completed the first year of the M.B.B.S. course there. Thereafter, in August 1984, she made an application for her transfer to the Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal. Her request was granted by the Gandhi Medical College with the approval of thestate of Madhya Pradesh and with "no objection" from the Ramayya Medical College. Thereafter she sat in the second and third examinations pertaining to the MBBS degree along with Dr. Jain and completed her MBBS course along with Dr. Jain in 1987 from the Gandhi. Medical College, Bhopal. Thereafter, both of them cleared their internship of one year and also joined a house job in Radiology in the same college and completed the same in August 1989. It was at this stage that both of them applied for being admitted to the M. D. course with the result already set out.

3. As already mentioned, it is not in dispute that, if the total number of marks obtained by the two contestants in all the examinations of the M.B.B.S. degree are taken and reduced to an ."effective" percentage and a common maximum as per the rules, Dr. Nilofer does get a higher percentage of marks than the respondent. In fact, we find from the papers filed before us that another candidate, Dr. Km. Indu Fotedar, had obtained a percentage of 59.04 which was also higher than the percentage obtained by Dr. Jain. However, she is no longer in the race for a seat in M.D. (Radiology) as she appears to have joined the M.D. course in medicine that was offered to her. Thus it was that the Radiology seat went to Dr. Insaf.

4. Dr. Jains challenge to the admission granted to the appellant cannot be a direct one as the latter had clearly secured higher percentage of marks than himself in the M.B.B.S. examinations. He, therefore, attacks her candidature for the M.D. course on other grounds which may be described as collateral or indirect. According to him, the transfer of the appellant from the Bangalore Medical College to the Bhopal Medical College was itself invalid and he urges that, since the very admission of the appellant to the M.B.B.S. degree in the Bhopal College was invalid, she could not at all have been considered for admission to the M.D. course which was available only to the institutional candidates. The grounds on which the transfer of the appellant from Bangalore to Bhopal is cha