A.K.Jayasankaran Nambiar, J.

The Petitioner in W.P.(C)35202/18 is the appellant herein, aggrieved by the

judgment dated 29.10.2018 of the learned Single Judge. For the sake of

convenience, reference to the parties and documents is as they appear in the

writ petition.

2. The petitioner had obtained admission to the Government Law College,

Trivandrum pursuant to the online allotment process that was initiated for

admission to the three year LLB Course, 2018 in the Law Colleges within the

State. It is the case of the petitioner that she had indicated her first preference

as the Government Law College, Ernakulam and the second preference as

Government Law College, Trivandrum and in the online allotment process, she

was allotted the Government Law College, Trivandrum based on the vacancy

position that obtained then. Although there was a provision in the prospectus

that enabled candidates to opt for their higher preference in the event of any

vacancy arising in the said college of preference, it is not in dispute that during

the online admission process there was no vacancy that arose at Government

Law College, Ernakulam to accommodate the petitioner. The online admission

process, therefore, closed and at the end of it, the petitioner was allotted the

Government Law College in Trivandrum. In the Writ petition, it is the case of the

petitioner that by Ext.P3 notification, which published the guidelines for spot

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allotment, while a transfer was permitted for students admitted to a Government

Law College to join another Law College in the Self Financing Sector or vice

versa, a similar facility was not provided for students admitted to a Government

Law College so as to allow them to move to another Government Law College, in

the event of any vacancy arising in that college. According to the petitioner, the

said provision in the guidelines for spot allotment is discriminatory as against

those students had obtained allotment to a Government Law College.

3. The learned Single Judge took note of the relevant Clause in Ext.P3

notification and found that, the mere fact that few seats fell vacant during the

spot allotment process on account of the release of seats from other quotas

could not be a ground to hold that the interdiction in Ext.P3 with regard to the

transfer from one Law College to another Law College was unreasonable. While

arriving at such a conclusion, the learned Single Judge took note of the decisions

of the Supreme Court in Arvind Kumar Kankane v. State of U.P. and others [2001

KHC 1650] to opine that even under circumstances where a seat becomes vacant

after the allotments are complete, and is filled up by a candidate who is lower in

rank in the merit list, the same can be treated only as a fortuitous circumstance

and that cannot be a test for examining the reasonableness of the rule.

4. Before us, the learned counsel for the appellant, Sri.Ajoy.P.B, would

vehemently contend that the provisions in Ext.P3 guidelines, to the extent it

denies the facility of transfer from one Government Law College to another to

students who have been admitted through spot admission, is discriminatory in

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that the guidelines permitted the transfer of a student, who was allotted a seat in

spot allotment to a Government Law College, to a Law College in the self

financing sector or vice-versa. We note, however, that the petitioner is a person

who had obtained allotment in the online allotment process and not in the spot

allotment process. We are at a loss to understand how Ext.P3 notification can

govern the allotment done in the case of the petitioner. The petitioner being a

candidate, who secured allotment to the Government Law College, Trivandrum in

the regular online allotment process, had her right to admission recognised

through her allotment to the Government Law College in Trivandrum. Although

she could have opted for the Government Law College, Ernakulam, which was

her preferred choice of Government law colleges in the