A classification based on geographical lines without any rational basis is arbitrary and discriminatory and violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India.

Sambuddha Chakrabarti, J.

1. APPARENTLY an interim order passed on a bunch of writ petitions evoked more appeals than the number of writ petitions and in the process appeals filed after obtaining leave of the Court have outnumbered the writ petitions and if this is not what is generally experienced in an adversarial litigation one further point also needs to be mentioned that the interim order was not challenged by any of the respondents to the writ petitions. Strangers felt aggrieved by the interim order, obtained leave of the Court and filed numerous appeals at different points of time. This is not to speak of the interveners in support of the appellants. Since the challenge of all these appeals is to the same impugned order of the learned single Judge they were heard analogously and are being disposed of together.

2. THE Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2000 were framed by the Medical Council of India under section 33 of the Indian Medical Councils Act, 1956. THE said Regulations aimed at laying down the rules and procedures of admission to various post-graduate courses, post graduate curriculum, selection of post-graduate students, duration of their training and a host of other subjects dealing with various aspects of post graduate medical teaching in India.

3. IN 2009 new amending Regulations, Part 111, were made by the said authority making certain additions, modifications, deletions, etc. in the Regulations of 2000 followed by further amending Regulations of 2010 whereby a proviso was added to Clause 9(2)(d) of the said Regulations which made provision for weightage in the marks as an incentive at the rate of 10 percent of the marks obtained for each year in service in remote or difficult areas as decided by the competent State authorities from time to time up to a maximum of 30 per cent of the marks obtained in determining the merit at the entrance test for admission to the post graduate courses.

4. ON November 23, 2011 the department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of West Bengal, had issued a notification which inter alia recited that the Government of India had identified and categorised eleven districts in the State of West Bengal as backward. It further mentioned that considering that backwardness, remoteness and difficult circumstances were strongly correlated, the State Government categorised eleven districts, as named in the said notification, as remote and difficult areas. In addition, the district of Coochbehar and the hill sub-divisions of the district of Darjeeling were also included in the said list in view of their remoteness and inaccessibility. The notification declared that with effect from the academic session commencing from 2012, 50 per cent, of the seats in post graduate diploma courses conducted by the West Bengal University of Health Sciences should be reserved for Medical Officers in the West Bengal Health Service and West Bengal Public Health-cum-Administrative Service who had served for at least three years in those remote and difficult areas. The said notification further provided that in determining the merit at the entrance test for post graduate admission weightage in the marks would be given to officers borne in the cadres of the two services mentioned above as well as the West Bengal Medical Education Service as an incentive at the rate of 10 per cent, of the marks obtained for each completed year in service in the aforesaid remote and difficult areas up to a maximum of 30 per cent, of the marks obtained.

5. THIS notification led to the filing of several writ petitions on various grounds such as the classification and categorisation of remote and difficult areas were unreasonable, arbitrary and irregular; the notification was not approved by the Executive Council and the General Council of the concerned University; the said notification was ultra vires the proviso to Articles 162 read with 154 and 14 of the Constitution of India and sections 32 and 33 of the In