The fundamental right of the petitioners under Article 14 of the Constitution of India should not be violated due to the faults of the examination board and the college.

Shiva Kirti Singh, J.

1. These two writ petitions involve common questions of fact and law and, therefore, with consent of parties, they have been heard together and are being disposed of by this common order at the stage of admission itself.

2. Both the writ petitions have been filed by students. Both of them had taken the Bihar Combined Entrance Competitive Examination conducted by the Bihar Combined Entrance Competitive Examination Board (hereinafter referred to as the Board) in 1998 for admission into various engineering colleges in the State of Bihar. The petitioners did not find place in the first list of successful candidates but subsequently they were found eligible for admission on seats that remained vacant in Maulana Azad College, of Engineering and Technology, Patna (hereinafter referred to as the College). The grievance of the petitioners is that the Board thrice fixed and communicated to the petitioners the date of counselling for admission against vacant seats in the College, first by Annexure-2 dated 4.2.1999 and again by Annexure-4 dated 12.3.1999 and again by Annexure-5 dated 26.4.1999 but all the notices were subsequently cancelled and no interview/counselling took place for no fault of the petitioners and wholly on account of wrong actions of the Board or of the College in question. This forced the petitioners to move this Court through the present writ applications with a prayer to command the respondents to hold the necessary interview/counselling of eligible candidates including the petitioners forthwith and to admit them in the College in question on the basis of merit-cum-choice for the 1998-99 session for which the petitioners had taken the examination.

3. The stand of the respondent-State of Bihar and the Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Government of Bihar, as appears from the counter-affidavit on behalf of the respondent No. 2, is one of absolute indifference on the ground that as per Sec. 8 of the Bihar Combined Entrance Competitive Examination Act, 1995 the concerned responsibility is that of Controller of Examination, respondent No. 4. So far as the Chairman of the Board and the Controller of Examination are concerned, their stand is that the first merit list of Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics (PCM) group for admission to engineering and other courses was published on 15.8.1998, the interview/counselling was held from 23.8.1998 to 31.8.1998 and recommendation for admission was made accordingly. With regard to grievance of the petitioners, the stand of the aforesaid respondents is that when they had fixed the dates for interview/counselling for the petitioners then by a letter dated 28.4.1999 the College informed the Controller that the College has already admitted 150 students in the first year of 1998-99 batch and hence, it was not possible for the College to admit any more students in that batch. Same is the stand of the College, respondent No. 5, before this Court. On behalf of the College, it has been submitted that it cannot wait indefinitely for the Board or the Controller to make recommendations. It admitted students recommended by the Board till January 1999 but thereafter it has filled up the remaining seats on its own. In its counter-affidavit, the respondent No. 5, the College has accepted the fact that as a recognised minority College, it is entitled to fill up only 50% of the seats by itself and rest of the 50% seats are required to be filled up on the basis of list to be furnished by the competent authority, in this case, the Board and the Controller of Examination. But, their further stand is that as per paragraph 210(9) of the judgment of Hon ble Supreme Court in Unni Krishnans case -- , the management of all such technical colleges whether general or minority were entitled to fill up those seats which may remain vacant after exhaustion of waiting list of candidates sent by the authorities or after the last date prescribed by the competent