The central legal point established in the judgment is the significance of the OBC certificate in determining the eligibility for admission under the OBC category and the application of relevant case law in rectifying inadvertent mistakes in the application process.

A perusal of the material placed before this Court would disclose among other things that the petitioner after passing Higher Secondary Examination had applied for admission to M.B.B.S. course for the academic year 2016-2017 conducted by the second respondent and the on-line registration commenced on 07.03.2016 and the registration closed on 04.05.2016. The petitioner had submitted the on-line application through her school, namely Sri Chaitanya Narayana Junior College, Vijayawada and also underwent entrance examination coaching at Sri Chaitanya Narayana Junior College, Vijayawada and the said institution had also processed the entire submission of the application form through on-line on behalf of all its students including the petitioner herein. The petitioner had also obtained Other Backward Class certificate issued by the Tahsildar, Anantapur Municipal Corporation, Revenue Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh stating that she belongs to Kummara or Kulala or Salivahana (OBC). The petitioner was under the hope that since she had secured very good marks, she would be selected to admission to first year M.B.B.S. course under OBC category. However, to her shock and surprise, when the results were announced, she found that though she secured overall percentile of 99.90000288 marks, she has been categorized under Unreserved category. The reason was due to inadvertent mistake/error committed by the coaching institution which filled up the on-line application form by stating that the petitioner belongs to Unreserved category instead of OBC category and therefore, prays for appropriate orders.

2. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioner would submit that this Court, while entertaining the Writ Petition, has passed an interim order dated 20.06.2016, directing the second respondent to permit the petitioner to attend the counselling to be held on 21.06.2016 under OBC category in the M.B.B.S. Course for the academic year 2016-2017 for the purpose of verification of documents in terms of the prospectus issued by the second respondent and also made it clear that the said interim order is subject to the result of this writ petition and the petitioner herein, by virtue of the interim order, cannot claim any equity at the time of final disposal of the writ petition. Accordingly, the petitioner has participated in the counselling. In the first phase of counselling, 28 candidates belong to OBC category were called and as per the marks obtained by the petitioner, she should have been ranked 16th and whereas, only 8 of them had remained absent and therefore, the petitioner should have been moved up and but for the non submission of the OBC certificate, she would have been selected under the said category. It is the further submission of the learned counsel appearing for the petitioner that the petitioner had also participated in the selection process of counselling for getting admission in any one of the Government Medical Colleges in Andra Pradesh and the result is also awaited and she has a very bright opportunity of joining the prime institution viz., JIPMER to pursue her career and prays for appropriate orders. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioner in support of his submissions placed reliance upon a judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in Ram Kumar Gijroya Vs. Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Board and another [(2016) 4 SCC 754].

3. Per contra, Mr. G.Rajagopalan, learned Additional Solicitor General assisted by Mr. M.T.Arunan, learned Standing counsel appearing for the second respondent has drawn the attention of this Court to the counter affidavit and would submit that the petitioner in the entrance examination had secured 99.90002888 percentile and was ranked 134 in the General Unreserved category as per the application in the merit list for the academic year 2016-2017 and though there was a gap of 16 days from the last date of application to download the hall ticket with another gap of 16 days fro