The Court reaffirmed that once admissions are made under specific rules, changes mid-session violate established procedural norms.

1. The petitioner who is a student of postgraduate Medical course (Anaesthesia) of Medical College, Raipur and pursing his post graduation studies in that college has preferred this writ petition under Art. 226/227 of the Constitution of India seeking direction that to direct the respondents to give admission to the petitioner in MS (General Surgery) against a seat which is lying vacant since beginning.

2. The petitioner's petition is that the respondent No. 1 State of Chhattisgarh made Chhattisgarh Medical Snatkottar Pravesh Pariksha Niyam 2002. The said rules came into force on 15-5-2002 and the aims and objects of making the Pre - P.G. Rules, 2002 were to fill the State quota seats through the State Pre - P.G. Examination.

3. The Pre - P.G. Rules laid down the specific eligibility criteria as mentioned in clause 6 thereof which a candidate is required to fulfill seeking admission to post graduate courses. The petitioner fulfilled all the criteria fixed under the Pre - P.G. Rules, 2002 and that in response to the advertisement published in Hindi Daily 'Danik Bhaskar' dated 4th June 2002 applied in the prescribed manner for appearing in the Pre - P.G. test to be conducted by the Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur and he was issued admission card by the university and he appeared in the entrance test conducted on 10-7-2002. The petitioner was declared successful and secure 10th position in order of merit. Copy of the result is Annexure - P / 4.

4. On 24-2-2003 the process of counselling was commenced by the respondents for admission to MD / MS and Diploma Courses 2002 and the candidates who had passed the Pre - P.G. test were called for counselling on 26-2-2003. The procedure of counselling followed by the respondents was that they displayed on the blackboard the number of post - graduate degree seats available against each course / subject and called the candidates one by one as per the list Annexure - P / 4 and asked them to choose one available course / subject. The candidates appeared before the committee and indicated their individual choice for the course / subject and the available seats were thus sought to be filled up.

5. The petitioner was interested to exercise his option for MS (General Surgery) course. But he being at S.No. 10 in the order of, merit and by the time his turn came, the seats for M.S. (General Surgery) were declared filled up as one Dr. Mukesh Kumar Tiwari who was at S. No. 2 had opted for the same, then the petitioner gave his choice for MD course in Anaesthesia. The testimonials of the candidates were scrutinized by the committee after the provisional allotment of seats as stated above and at this stage it was found by the committee verifying the certificates that Dr. Mukesh Kumar Tiwari at S. No. 2 in the list who had opted for M.S. (General Surgery) course was not eligible because his certificates were not in order and therefore, finally he was not admitted to the said P.G. course. Thus the seat for M.S. (General Surgery) remained vacant and has not been filled till date.

6. The above situation arose due to improper procedure adopted by the respondents in counselling. Had the certificates been scrutinized first before allotting the seat, as contemplated in Pre - P.G. Rules, 2002, the seat for M.S. (General Surgery) would not have been wrongly provisionally allotted to Dr. Mukesh Kumar Tiwari and the petitioner would have got the said seat.

7. The petitioner on coming to know that the seat for M.S. (General Surg