JUDGMENT

1. As Nos. 1-3 are allowed.

2. Special leave granted.

3. A group of Writ Petitions came to be disposed of by a Division Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court speaking through Giani, J., on 21st August, 1993, which related to admission to the Medical and Dental Colleges in the said State. The present Special Leave Petitions are directed against the Miscellaneous Petition No. 1904 (which was the main petition in which the judgment was rendered) and Miscellaneous Petition No. 1744 of 1992. Admission to the Medical Courses was governed by the Rules made by the State Government in that behalf, Chapter 3 whereof is relevant for our purpose. Rule 3.3 provides for reservation of seats. It posits that a minimum of 15 per cent seats shall be reserved each for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes candidates. In pursuance of this Rule, out of the total number of seats available, 87 seats were reserved for Scheduled Castes candidates and an equal number for Scheduled Tribes candidates. Rule 3.3.3 provided that in case eligible candidates to the extent of reservation in any reserved category are not available, the vacancies of the reserved category will be filled from the waiting list of candidates in general category, if considered necessary. Rule 3.5 provides the mode of selection. Rule 3.5.2 is relevant for our purpose and may be extracted for ready reference.

"3.5.2 Qualifying marks in PMT

For admission to Medical and Dental courses candidates of various categories will have to secure minimum aggregate percentage of marks in PMT as mentioned in the following table:

S.No. COURSE CATEGORY-WISE PERCENTAGE

G SC ST MP FF

1. Medical 50 35 25 50 50

2. Dental 35 30 25 35 35

Note: The above percentage of minimum qualifying marks for admission to MBBS/BDS is in respect to aggregate. This will not be relaxed further. No minimum qualifying marks are prescribed in individual subjects. Aggregates for these courses will consist of the marks obtained in PCBZ only. Thus, marks obtained in GE will not be added in the aggregate but a candidate must secure at least 25% marks in GE to qualify for admission to these courses."

The abbreviation PCBZ stands for Physics, Chemistry, Botany and Zoology. Rule 3.8 confers on the State Government the right to amend any Rule/Procedure for admission to Medical and Dental Colleges and says that any modification so made shall be binding. On a plain reading of Rule 3.5.2 it becomes clear that the percentage of minimum marks indicated for various categories of students in PCBZ subjects will not be relaxable but as far as General English is concerned the minimum qualifying marks are prescribed to be 25% but those marks will not be added in the aggregate.

4. It so happened that out of the 87 seats available to Scheduled Castes candidates only 40 students qualified for admission; whereas in the Scheduled Tribes category out of 87 seats available only 30 qualified for admission under the above Rules. The result was that out of 174 seats reserved for SC/ST candidates only 70 could be utilised leaving 94 unutilised seats. Ordinarily, these unutilised seats would have gone to the General Category by virtue of Rule3.3.3. However, the State Government by the order dated 9th September, 1992 intervened and reduced the minimum qualifying marks in English subject for Scheduled Castes at 15 per cent and for Scheduled Tribes at 10 per cent. On this reduced percentage of qualifying marks in the General English category additional SC/ST candidates were offered admission to the Colleges on the unutilised reserved seats. The order dated 9th September,1992 appears to have been made in exercise of power conferred by Rule 3.8 referred to earlier. It must be clarified that this relaxation, if one may call it so, was restricted to the General English subject only and there was no relaxation granted in regard to PCBZ subjects. The State Government realising that the SC/ST students who would secure admission by virtue of the relaxation would