Karnataka High Court: A Division Bench of Aravind Kumar and N. S. Sanjay Gowda, JJ., disposed of the petition and directed the respondents to issue the petitioners with necessary certificates if the course has been completed successfully.
Petitioners in these writ petitions are students who were admitted to the Post Graduate Ayurveda course in the academic year 2017-18. The admission of the petitioners into the Post Graduate courses were found fault with by the respondent authorities on the ground that they had obtained admission without appearing for the entrance examinations namely All India AYUSH – Post Graduate Entrance Test (AIAPGET-2017).
Counsel for the petitioners Mr Mohammed Tahir A submitted that the Apex Court had extended the benefit of continuing their courses as a onetime exercise to all the students who had admitted to Post Graduate courses before 31.10.2019, petitioners, having been admitted prior to 31.10.2019, would also be entitled to continue and complete their course. He submitted that similar relief had been granted to a set of students, who had also been admitted without taking up the entrance test, by a Co-ordinate Bench of this Court in W.P.No.105310/2018 and W.P.Nos.106948-950/2018 which had applied the decision of the Apex Court and therefore, on parity, petitioners would also be entitled to the same relief.
Counsel for the respondents Ms Manasi Kumar, Mr N K Ramesh and Mr G V Shashikumar submitted that in the instant case, petitioners had got themselves admitted without the intervention of the Court by grant of interim orders and the petitioners had chosen to take a chance by getting admissions on their own. She submitted that as the petitioners had taken a risk by getting admitted to the Course despite being aware that they would be eligible for admission only if they had appeared in an entrance test, they would not be entitled to the relief extended by the Apex Court which was confined only to those students who had got admissions pursuant to interim orders granted by Courts.
The Court relied on judgment Union of India v. Federation of Self Financed Ayurvedic Colleges Punjab in Civil Appeal No. 603/2020 observed that the Apex Court in the judgment by distinctly stating that it was extending the benefit not only to those students who had been permitted to continue their courses on the strength of interim orders, but also to all other students and the only stipulation was that all of them should have been admitted before 31.10.2019, has clearly clarified that the benefit would be applicable to all the students who had been admitted prior to 31.10.2019.
The Court further observed that since the Apex Court has extended the benefit not only to students who had been admitted under interim orders, but also to students who were admitted without the intervention of the Court, all the students who were admitted prior to 31.10.2019 without taking up the entrance test, would be entitled to the same benefit of continuing their courses. It was also observed that “all the petitioners herein have admittedly been admitted prior to 31.10.2019 and they would thus be entitled to the relief of continuing and completing their courses”.
The court held “these writ petitions are disposed of with a direction to the respondents to permit the petitioners to continue and complete their respective Post Graduate courses in Ayurveda”[Dr. Sontakke Kanchan Ramrao v. Union of India, W.P. No. 29798/2018, decided on 17-06-2021]
Arunima Bose, Editorial Assistant has reported this brief.