The Court affirmed the necessity of adhering to established eligibility criteria in nursing admissions, ruling that illegal admissions cannot be condoned, ensuring educational integrity and fairness in the process.

JUDGMENT :

(PER : RAVINDRA V. GHUGE, J.) :

1. Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith and heard finally by the consent of the parties.

2. All these Petitioners have suffered cancellation of their admissions to the 1^st semester of the 1^st Year (3 years course) by the Indian Nursing Council (hereinafter referred to as ‘INC’), due to which their admissions to the Auxiliary Nurse Midwifery (ANM)/General Nursing and Midwifery (GNM), have been cancelled. The Respondent Nursing Colleges have also informed the INC as well as the students about the cancellation of their admissions. Yet, some of them have been allowed to sit in the classrooms as if they are legally admitted students.

3. Therefore, some of these Petitioners approached this Court seeking urgent orders as they were disallowed from appearing in the 1^st semester of the 1^st Year exam. The learned predecessor Bench passed an ad-interim order on 29^th July 2025, allowing the Petitioners to appear for the 1^st semester exam. All of them have, therefore, been permitted to appear for the 1^st semester examination, which begins from 23^rd September, 2025, and ends on 26^th September, 2025.

4. These Petitioners are students who were admitted to the 3 years course in the admission process that started in October, 2024. They secured admission to the ANM/GNM courses in the Nursing Colleges after their 12^th Standard exams. Thereafter, the INC commenced its routine verification exercise. The INC informed the Registrar of the Maharashtra State Board of Nursing and Paramedical Education (hereinafter referred to as ‘the State Board’), Directorate of Medical Education and Research, Mumbai, vide communication dated 24^th February, 2025, which is as under :

“Sub : To get Guidance on the following matters – reg

Madam,

This has reference to your letter no.MSBNPE/12588/2024 dated 24.02.2024 on the subject noted above, by keeping in mind the eligibility criteria for ANM and GNM programme, the Vocational stream -specialization (extracted from the CBSE list of Vocational Subjects- copy enclosed) as stated below can be considered for the admission to ANM & GNM programs :

• S.no.13 (c) Yoga Anatomy and Physiology,

• S.no.14 - Ophthalmic Techniques,

• S.no.15 - Medical Laboratory Technology (Laboratory Machine (Clinical Pathology, Hematology & Histopathology, Clinical Biochemistry, Microbiology)

• S.no.16 - Auxiliary Nursing & Midwifery (Fundamentals of Nursing II, Community Nursing II, Maternity & Child Health Nursing II) - (for GNM program)

• S.no.17 - X-Ray Technician- (Radiation Physics, Radiography I (General), Radiography II (Special Investigation, Imaging and Radiograph)

This issues with the approval of Competent Authority.”

5. The Registrar of the Board, who was present in the Court hall on 22^nd September 2025, submitted that after due verification of the Applications of these Petitioners, these 22 students (the Petitioners) were found to have been admitted illegally, along with 68 others. He submitted that these are not irregular admissions, but illegal admissions.

For example, our attention was drawn to one Petitioner, namely, Kole Priyanka Tukaram. Her 12^th Standard curriculum was in the “HSC Vocational” stream. Following were her subjects for the 12^th standard :

“01 ENGLISH 02 MARATHI

90 GENERAL FOUNDATION COURSE

X1 COMPUTER TECHNIQUE 1

X2 COMPUTER TECHNIQUE 2

X3 COMPUTER TECHNIQUE 3

31 ENVIRONMENT EDUCATION”

By way of another example, he has cited the case of the Petitioner, Mhaske Balaji Navnath, who had the following subjects in his HSC Vocational stream :

“01 ENGLISH

02 MARATHI

90 GENERAL FOUNDATION COURSE

L4 CROP SCIENCE 1

L5 CROP SCIENCE 2

L6 CROP SCIENCE 3

31 ENVIRONMENT