Devan Ramachandran, J.

1. In issue in these writ petitions are the validity of the two orders issued by the Admission Supervisory Committee ('ASC' in short) constituted under the provisions of the Kerala Professional Colleges or Institution (Prohibition of Capitation Fee, Regulation of Admission, Fixation of Non-Exploitative Fee and other Measures to Ensure Equity and Excellence in Professional Education) Act, 2006 [herein after referred to as the 'Act'].

2. The sole reason why the ASC has rejected the admissions of the petitioners to the Dental Courses, in these cases is because they suspected and finally concluded that the applications of the petitioners were not made online to the colleges in question.

3. We are proposing to consider these two writ petitions together and to dispose of them jointly since the contentions raised, grounds urged and the relief’s sought are entwined and intrinsically connected to each other, and for goods reason because the facts presented are also essentially the same.

4. We have heard Mr. George Poonthottam and Mr. Roshen D. Alexander, the learned counsel appearing for the petitioners; Mr. D. Sreekumar, the learned Standing Counsel for the Kerala University of Health Sciences; Smt. Mary Benjamin, the learned Standing Counsel for the ASC and Mr. T.B. Hood, the learned counsel for the Colleges.

5. The two colleges involved in these cases are the Century International Institute of Dental Science and Research Centre and Kannur Dental College.

6. The controversy in these cases relate to the admissions to the BDS Course for the year 2016-17. The petitioners in W.P. (C) No. 22861 of 2017 are students who have obtained admissions in the Century International Institute of Dental Science and Research Centre; while the petitioners in W.P(C)No.22863 of 2017 are the students who have obtained admissions in the Kannur Dental College. As we already said above, the assertions and the contentions of the petitioners in these two cases are more or less similar, save a minor variation. This is that while the petitioners in W.P.(C)No.22861 of 2017 have, through their pleadings, asserted unequivocally that they have all applied online to the college in question; the petitioners in W.P(C) 22863 OF 2017 say that five among them had applied online, while the others had gone to the college and that the College had offered them to upload their applications online. Apart from this minor variation that we have seen , the factual assertions of the petitioners in both these cases are that they had uploaded their applications online, some on their own and the others with the assistance of the college.

7. We notice from the records available that the colleges in question has been allotted 100 seats each to the BDS course for the year 2016-17. Both of these colleges had entered into a seat sharing arrangement with the Government of Kerala and they have produced the relevant Government Orders on record evidencing this. Therefore, both these colleges had 50 seats to be filled up under the Management quota and NRI quota; while the balance 50 seats were to be filled up under the aegis of the Commissioner of Entrance Examinations. The colleges are ad idem that even though they had 50 seats each at their disposal, they did not obtain sufficient number of applications from candidates, thereby constraining them to fill up only 32 seats each and to surrender the balance of 18 seats each to the Government under the mandate of the applicable regulations.

8. The Colleges also say that they had got their respective prospectus approved by the ASC and the orders of the ASC granting such approval have also been placed on record as Ext.P3 in both these cases. The approved prospectus of the colleges have been appended to the respective writ petitions. The colleges state that as per the stipulations of the prospectus, the last date for receipt of applications online from candidates was 31.08.2016 and that the last date for admission was initial