The main legal point established in the judgment is that candidates who have not availed of available seats in the previous allotment process are not entitled to admission, as per Rule 11(1)(viii) of the Gujarat Professional PG Ayurved and Homeopathy Medial Educational Courses (Regulation of Admission) Rules, 2018.

ORDER :

1. Heard learned Advocate Mr.Harsh Parekh for the petitioners, learned Sr. Advocate Mrs.Manisha Lavkumar appearing with learned Advocate Mr.K. M. Antani for respondent No.1 and learned Advocate Mr.Harshit Shukla for respondent No.2.

2. By way of these petitions, the petitioners have sought for the following reliefs:-

“18.[a] That this Honourable Court may be pleased to issue a writ of mandamus and/or any other appropriate writ, order or direction directing the Admission Committee for Professional Post-graduate Medical Educational Courses, Respondent No.1 herein, to follow the mandate of the Gujarat Professional Post-graduate Ayurved and Homoeopathy Medical Educational Courses (Regulation of Admission) Rules, 2018 – at Annexure-A, and thereupon be pleased to permit the petitioners to be admitted to vacant seats in the order of their merit.

[b] That pending admission, hearing and final disposal of the present writ petition, this Honourable Court may be pleased to permit the petitioners to be admitted on available vacant seats on provisional basis on such terms and conditions that this Honourable Court may deem fit and proper in the facts and circumstances of the present case.

[c] That this Honourable Court be pleased to pass any such other order as may be deemed necessary on the facts and in the circumstances of the case.”

3. The case of the petitioners is that vide an order dated 13.12.2023, whereby this Court had directed the Admission Committee to hold a stray vacancy round for filling up vacancies in PG – Ayurved and Homeopathy, the petitioners have been prevented from participating and whereas the petitioners have approached this Court inter alia submitting that even after the stray vacancy round had been conducted, there are approximately 124 vacancies remaining in PG – Ayurved and whereas the petitioners request this Court to direct the Admission Committee to grant admission to the petitioners in the said vacancies.

4. Considering the submissions made by the learned Advocate for the petitioners, it would appear that this Court vide an order dated 13.12.2023 in Special Civil Application No.19497 of 2023 had inter alia directed for conducting a stray vacancy counseling round for PG – Ayurved and Homeopathy, more particularly noticing that the guidelines of the Central Government do not envisage a framework and schedule for filling up the vacant seats after the 4th round of counseling. This Court had also noticed that about 40% of the PG seats would remain vacant on account of the vacuum which has arisen since the guidelines envisage admissions only through online mode and whereas the regulations of the State of Gujarat envisage admissions through offline mode, and whereas while guidelines of the Central Government had a primacy, yet on account of the modality not being specified for filling up of the stray vacancy round, 1/3rd vacancies would remain unfilled. It is the case of the petitioners that the directions inter alia envisage that the applications would be called from candidates, who have qualified as per the AIA-PGET criteria and have noted herein before not applied to the Admission Committee for admission to the PG Courses. It would further appear that while the petitioners have qualified AIA-PGET, yet on account of the fact that the petitioners had applied for admission to the Admission Committee and since the petitioners had not exercised their choices for all the available vacancies, therefore, the petitioners are now though eligible dis-entitled for applying.

5. Learned Advocate for the petitioner would submit that the petitioners are all qualified students having cleared AIA-PGET. It is submitted that as of now, there are 37 seats, which are vacant after the counseling which had been conducted as per the order of this Court. It is submitted that merely on account of the fact that the petitioners’ names figured in the merit list and while the petitioners had refused admission in courses in colleges other than t