SUDHIR N & ORS. Vs. STATE OF KERALA & ORS. - Synopsis
Team SoOLEGAL 15 May 2017

According to Supreme Cout case is filed by the respondents whereby the High Court has allowed the said petitions with the direction that selection of in-service medical officers for post-graduate medical education under Section 5(4) of the Kerala Medical Officers’ Admission to Postgraduate Courses under Service Quota Act, 2008 (Kerala Act 29 of 2008), shall be made strictly on the basis of inter se seniority of the candidates who have taken the common entrance test for post-graduate medical education and have obtained the minimum eligibility bench mark in that test in terms of the Regulations framed by the Medical Council of India. Forty percent of the seats available in the State of Kerala for post-graduate medical admission are reserved for in-service doctors serving in the Health Service Department, Medical College lecturers and doctors serving in the Employees State Insurance Department of the State. As per Regulations, the candidates who appears in the common entrance examination and secure 50% in the case of general category candidates and 40% in the case of SC/ST candidates alone shall be qualified for such admission. Consequently, even inservice candidates had to appear and qualify in the common entrance examination. Representations appear to have been received by the Government from many quarters pointing out that in-service candidates who were working around the clock for the benefit of the public even in remote rural areas could hardly find time to update their knowledge and compete with the general merit candidates so as to score the required 50% marks in the common entrance examination and to qualify for admission to any postgraduate course. Having said that the High Court adopted a reconciliatory approach when it directed that seniority of the in-service candidates will continue to play a role provided the candidates concerned have appeared in the common entrance test and secured the minimum percentage of marks stipulated by the Regulations. The Court has allowed in-service candidates to be treated as a separate channel for admission to post-graduate course within that category also admission can be granted only on the basis of merit. A meritorious in-service candidate cannot be denied admission only because he has an eligible senior above him though lower in merit. It is now fairly well settled that merit and merit alone can be the basis of admission among candidates belonging to any given category. In service candidates belong to one category. Their inter-se merit cannot be overlooked only to promote seniority which has no place in the scheme of MCI Regulations. That does not mean that merit based admissions to in-service candidates cannot take into account the service rendered by such candidates in rural areas. Weightage for such service is permissible while determining the merit of the candidates in terms of the third proviso to Regulation 9 (supra). Suffice it to say that Regulation 9 remains as the only effective and permissible basis for granting admission to in-service candidates provisions of Section 5(4) of the impugned enactment not with standing.That being so, admissions can and ought to be made only on the basis of inter se merit of the candidates determined in terms of the said principle which gives no weightage to seniority simplicitor. In the result, these appeals fail and are hereby dismissed but in the circumstances without any order as to costs.

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