IMPORTANT POINT
The main legal point established in the judgment is the importance of following AIQ merit and preventing vacant medical seats in government colleges as directed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court.

JUDGMENT :

K. VINOD CHANDRAN, J.

1. Medicine as a career option stands out from others; desired equally by the parents and their wards. Out of the various disciplines, MBBS occupies the place of pride and the jostling to procure admission has resulted in the Courts of this land having spent considerable time in examining the nuances of selection to ensure fairness, transparency and equality as also avoid, illegality, arbitrariness and colourable exercise of power. The Hon’ble Supreme Court has time and again held that in no case can merit be compromised and rendered a casualty. It is in the backdrop of the principles enunciated by the Hon’ble Supreme Court that the alternate/substitute remedy of compensation granted in the above cases by the learned Single Judge, to the disappointed candidates who were the petitioners in the writ petitions, has to be considered in the appeals filed by the Bihar Combined Entrance Competitive Examination Board, which carried out the admissions under challenge, on the directions issued by the Hon’ble Supreme Court.

2. Bereft of the unnecessary details, it has to be noticed that the admissions were for the academic year 2016-17, carried out to the MBBS/BDS seats all over the country through the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test [NEET (UG)-2016] conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Examination, the results of which were published on 16.08.2016.

3. The writ petitioners, who are the first respondents in the various appeals, were found eligible for counselling to the 85% State quota seats and 15% All India Quota (AIQ) seats. The petitioners, all of them, obtained admission to the BDS course for the academic year, after which selection certain seats in the AIQ remained vacant. The States were carrying on counselling for admissions to the unfilled AIQ seats reverted to the State quota; when an application was filed by certain candidates before the Hon’ble Supreme Court. The Hon’ble Supreme Court passed two orders, dated 03.10.2016 and 06.10.2016; the first of which directed the States not to fill up the unfilled seats reverted from the AIQ and the second, directed the State authority to fill up such vacant seats remaining unfilled, from the AIQ. The period granted for filling up such vacancies from the AIQ was a single day; i.e. 07.10.2016. The petitioners appeared for counselling, but they were denied admission. From those who were admitted, the petitioners impleaded four persons who obtained lesser marks than the petitioners. We extract the tabular form of the merit-wise position, as found in the impugned judgment:

4. From the above, it is clear that two petitioners, if permitted counselling would have obtained the first two of the four seats, and the other two petitioners would not have been admitted at all. Referring to the petitioners by their names, Manisha Gaurav and Adhishree obtained ranks above the last four candidates admitted in the counselling conducted on 07.10.2016. The ranks of Gul Afshan Naz and Dipty Preyasi were above the ranks obtained by the Respondent Nos. 12 & 13 but below that obtained by respondents 10 & 11.

5. By the impugned judgment, Manisha Gaurav and Adhishree were found to have been illegally denied admission to the MBBS course and were hence granted Rs. 20 lacs each as compensation. Gul Afshan Naz was found to have approached the Court onl