IMPORTANT POINT
Admissions to super specialty courses should be made on merit alone.

JUDGMENT

Dipak Misra, J.

The gravamen of grievance and the substratum of discontent of the petitioners in this writ petition, preferred under Article 32 of the Constitution of India, is that though the primary eligibility criteria for appearing in the super-specialty entrance examination conducted in different States in India for admission to D.M. (Doctorate of Medicine) and M.Ch. (Masters of Chirurgiae) course regard being had to the purpose that it endows the students an excellent opportunity to prosecute super specialty subjects and to fulfill their aspirations for a bright and vibrant career as well as to serve the society in the institutes recognized by the Medical Council of India (MCI) and most of the States, namely, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal, Bihar and Haryana, conduct the entrance examination for the eligible candidates from All Over India and permit them to appear in the entrance examination, yet the States like, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu, confine the eligibility only to the candidates having domicile in their respective States. The fall out of the restriction is that candidates having the domicile in the said States can appear in other States’ entrance examination without any restriction and compete with other candidates, and the said situation creates a clear disparity, and further a state of inequality has been allowed to reign in the aforesaid three States. The dissatisfaction is further accentuated by asserting that the institutes with super-specialty courses are distributed all over India in a heterogeneous manner and the States like, Punjab, Madhya Prades, Chhatisgarh, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram, Tripura, Sikkim, Uttarakhand are not having any government institutes offering super-specialty courses and the candidates from the said States have to depend on the other States’ entrance examinations to seek a career in the discipline they are interested, but for the restriction imposed by the States like, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu, they are deprived of the opportunity to participate in the entrance examination and that invites the frown of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India.

2. It is urged in the writ petition that the restraint imposed by the aforesaid three States amounts to reservation in respect of the post-graduate level; and as far as the super-specialty courses are concerned, the question of reservation based on residence or institutional preference is totally impermissible, for merit cannot be compromised by making reservation on the consideration, like residential requirement, as that would be absolutely against the national interest and plays foul of equality clause engrafted in the Constitution. It is put forth that the States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have drawn support from the Presidential order, namely, Andhra Pradesh Educational Institutions (Regulations and Admissions) order 1974 (for short “the Presidential Order”) issued under Article 371-D of the Constitution and G.O.P. No.646 dated 10th July, 1979 issued by the State of Andhra Pradesh (for short, ‘the 1979 circular’), which are really not applicable to the super-specialty courses, for the legal system which prevails throughout the territory of India is a singular and indivisible one and Article 14 lays a clear postulate for conferment of equal opportunity throughout the nation. It is asseverated that the reservations made by the States of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu, ushers in a state of inequality by putting the residents of the said States in one class solely on the foundation of domicile and others in a different category altogether without any rationale and, therefore, the entire action smacks of arbitrariness and unreasonableness.

3. On the basis of aforesaid assertions prayers have been made to issue a command to the Respondent Nos.1 and 6 i.e. the Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Uni