JUDGMENT

Dr. Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud, J. - Leave granted.

2. The appeal arises from a judgment dated 2 August 2022 of a Division Bench of the High Court of Himachal Pradesh.

3. The first appellant is a private state university in Himachal Pradesh established under the Maharishi Markandeshwar University (Establishment and Regulation) Act 2010. The first appellant runs the Maharishi Markandeshwar Medical College and Hospital at Kumarhatti, District Solan. The medical college has a prescribed intake of 150 seats for admission to the MBBS degree course as approved by the National Medical Commission¹["NMC"].

4. The first respondent is medical student currently pursuing her BDS course in a government dental college. The second respondent, Atal Medical and Research University, Himachal Pradesh, issued a prospectus for conducting centralized counselling for MBBS/ BDS courses based on the order of merit in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test²["NEET"] 2021 for the undergraduate medical courses. The first respondent appeared in NEET-UG 2021 and secured 456 out of 720 marks with a rank of 1,26,537. On 29 January 2022, the second respondent issued a schedule of admission for the MBBS/ BD