The court held that claims for lower admission criteria must adhere to prescribed eligibility, and participation in the admission process limits the ability to contest its legal foundations.

JUDGMENT

Muralee Krishna, J.

The petitioners in W.P.(C)No.45037 of 2025 filed this writ appeal under Section 5 (i) of the Kerala High Court Act , 1958, challenging the judgment dated 11.12.2025 passed by the learned Single Judge in that writ petition.

2. Going by the averments in the writ petition, the appellants attended and qualified in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET Exam) for the year 2025-26. They, being students belonging to the Non-Keralite II Category, applied for admissions to the Bachelor of Sidha Medicine and Surgery (BSMS) Course under the All India quota (‘AIQ’ for short) and management quota in self-financing professional college in the State of Kerala. The only college providing the BSMS Course in the State of Kerala is Santhigiri Sidha Medical College at Thiruvananthapuram. The total scores obtained by the appellants in the NEET Exams are 128 (45.3 Percentile), 114 (40.59 Percentile) and 142 (49.6 Percentile), respectively, and these marks are above the qualifying cut-off for OBC/SC candidates as per the Central Reservation List.

The National Commission for Indian System of Medicine (‘NCISM’ in short) guidelines state that NEET qualifying criteria are the same for all candidates across India, regardless of their domicile. The appellants have now applied under the AIQ and the Management Quota. The NCISM Regulations allow reservation for allotment of 15% AIQ-UG seats in private ASU and H Institutes. All AIQ-UG seats are open in nature, and all category candidates are eligible, and relaxation in qualifying criteria is provided category-wise. The AIQ quota is filled irrespective of the domicile of the candidate, which means the reservation policy applies to all the candidates equally, irrespective of their domicile. Moreover, the management quota is also domicile-free. However, the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations (‘CEE’ for short) did not allot seats to the appellants due to reasons unknown to them. Instead of allotting eligible NK-II candidates, the CEE arbitrarily converted State Merit candidates into the AIQ quota, even before completing all mandatory rounds of counselling, which is in clear violation of the NCISM Counselling Regulations. If the NCISM regulations prescribe domicile-free admissions, then the students who are in the central list of reservation should be given admissions applying the said reservation chart. The denial of CEE to grant allotment to the appellants resulted in the infringement of the fundamental rights of the appellants. Hence, the appellants filed W.P.(C)No.45037 of 2025 under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, seeking the following reliefs;

“I. Issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order, or directions to the 1^st respondent to allot the petitioners under AIQ or Management Quota, without any discrimination based on domicile status;

II. Issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order, or directions directing the 1^st respondent to allow NK- II category students to apply for BSMS admissions through the KEAM portal in accordance with the provisions of the KEAM Prospectus and the NCISM guidelines;

III. Declare that petitioners are eligible for admissions under AIQ quota by availing category based reservation as provided under the NCISM guidelines.

IV. Issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order, or directions to the 1^st respondent to not to allot students once admitted under the State Merit Quota to All India Merit for filling up the All India Merit Vacant seats”.

3. In the writ petition, the 1st respondent f