Supreme Court - Daily Orders
Rajiv Gandhi University Of Health ... vs Bapuji Dental College And Hospital . And ... on 28 August, 2018
Bench: Arun Mishra, Indira Banerjee
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ITEM NO.15 COURT NO.8 SECTION IV-A
S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS
Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (C) No(s).2597-2610/2015
(Arising out of impugned final judgment and order dated 18-11-2014
in WP Nos.25919 to 25932 of 2014 passed by the High Court Of
Karnataka At Bengaluru)
RAJIV GANDHI UNIVERSITY OF HEALTH SCIENCES Petitioner(s)
VERSUS
BAPUJI DENTAL COLLEGE AND HOSPITAL & ORS. Respondent(s)
(With appln.(s) for clarification/direction and permission to file
addl. Documents)
WITH
SLP(C) Nos.2931-2951/2015 (IV-A)-(With appln.(s) for permission to
file addl. documents and clarification/direction)
Date : 28-08-2018 These matters were called on for hearing today.
CORAM :
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ARUN MISHRA
HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE INDIRA BANERJEE
Mr. P.S. Narasimha,ASG (A.C.)(Not present)
For Petitioner(s) Mr. S.N. Bhat,AOR
For Respondent(s) Mr. P.S. Patwalia,Sr.Adv.
Mr. Mahesh Thakur,AOR
Ms. Vipasha Singh,Adv.
Ms. Natasha Dalmia,Adv.
Ms. Harshika Verma,Adv.
Mr. Ajit Kumar Sinha,Sr.Adv.
Mr. Anish Kumar Gupta,Adv.
Mr. Sarad Kumar Singhania,Adv.
Mr. G.S. Makker,AOR
Signature Not Verified
Mr. Chandra Shekhar Suman,Adv.
Digitally signed by
SARITA PUROHIT
Date: 2018.09.14
DCI
16:15:43 IST
Reason: Mr. Gaurav Sharma,Adv.
Mr. Abhishek,Adv.
Mr. Prateek Bhatia,Adv.
Mr. Dhawal Mohan,Adv.
..2/-
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Ms. Bina Madhavan,Adv.
Ms. Akanksha Mehra,Adv.
Mr. Omkar Kambi,Adv.
For M/s. Lawyer’s Knit & Co,AOR
Ms. Farah Fathima,Adv.
Mr. Vijay Kumar,Adv.
For Dr. Sushil Balwada,AOR
Mr. Satya Mitra Garg,AOR
Mr. V.N. Raghupathy,AOR
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following
O R D E R
1. The Respondent Nos. 2 to 14 were all admitted to the Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) Course conducted by Bapuji Dental College and Hospital, being the Respondent No. 1, which is affiliated to the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, being the petitioner before us, during the academic year 2013-2014.
2. The Respondent Nos. 1 to 14 filed a writ petition in the High Court of Karnataka at Bangalore inter alia challenging a communication dated 15.04.2014 issued by the petitioner University calling upon the Principal of the Respondent No. 1, referred to for convenience as the Dental College, to submit the documents specified therein, namely, rank cards. Eligibility certificates and sponsorship letters of specified candidates which included the Respondent Nos. 2 to 14, failing which approval of their admission would not be considered; and another communication No. AC 2: Adm/ Mis 33/2013-14 informing the Dental College that the admission of the Respondent Nos. 2 to 14 could not be considered for approval as they had not appeared for and/or qualified in any Entrance Test conducted by the Government of India or any State Government or any of their authorized agencies.
3. By the order impugned in this Special Leave Petition, the High court has disposed of the said writ petition with the following directions:
3“ (i) Annexure-N issued by the 2nd respondent- University is hereby treated as Show- cause notice.
(ii) First petitioner-College is permitted to submit a detailed, consolidated reply to the show-
cause notice vide Annexure-N dated 10.6.2014, within a period of one week from the date of receipt of a copy of this order.
(iii) 2nd respondent-University is directed to receive the same, pass appropriate orders in accordance with law, after affording reasonable opportunity of hearting to the first petitioner or its authorised representative as expeditiously as possible, at any rate, within a period of one week from the date of appearance of the first petitioner or its authorized representative before it.
(iv) Further, the 2nd respondent-University is directed that, if the first petitioner- College satisfy the eligibility of petitioner Nos. 2 to 14 to announce the results of those students immediately, if they are otherwise found eligible.”
4. In this Special Leave Petition the petitioner has contended that the direction of the High Court is contrary to the law laid down by this Court in Priya Gupta v. State of Chhattisgarh reported in (2012) 7 SCC 433 and Ranjan Purohit v. Rajasthan University of Health Sciences reported in (2012) 10 SCC 770 where this Court categorically held that admission to medical and dental courses had to be done through competitive examination. The Court directed that those students who had not appeared in any competitive entrance examination should not be admitted to medical and dental surgery courses.
5. Admission of students in contravention of Rules and of judgments and orders of this Court cannot be countenanced. The Dental College ought not to have admitted the students without conducting an entrance examination.
6. However, unfortunately a lot of water has flown after the admissions were made. Pursuant to the impugned order, 4 students who otherwise had the requisite educational qualifications for admission, but had not appeared for any competitive admission/entrance test, had been continued.
6. On 02.02.2015 this Court directed issuance of notice. There was no interim stay of the impugned order of the High Court. Hence, students have continued to obtain education. The Special Leave Petition has been pending in this Court for about four years. The respondent Nos. 2 to 14 have almost completed their courses. Once education has been obtained, it should be utilized for public good.
7. In Nidhi Kaim v. State of Madhya Pradesh and Others reported in (2016) 7 SCC 615 Chelameswar, J. held:
“69. While it is a salutary principle based on public policy not to permit the retention of “property” obtained by fraudulent means, the application of the said principle becomes a matter of doubtful utility to the society in the context of the acquisition of knowledge by adopting fraudulent means examined from the point of view of the public interest. In the context of property (economic gains), the application of the principle works to the benefit of the rightful owner. But in the context of acquisition of knowledge, nobody would benefit by the application of the rule and would, therefore, serve only a limited public purpose.
70. Some 634 youngsters, who have already completed their training in medicine (or are about to complete) and whose knowledge could have otherwise been utilised for the benefit of the society, would be simply rendered useless for the society in the sense their knowledge cannot be utilised for the welfare of the society. The question is not whether these appellants deserve any sympathy. In my view, a larger question- whether this society can afford to waste such technically trained and qualified human resources which require enormous amounts of energy, time and other material resources to generate. Obviously, it takes another five years of time and expenditure of considerable material resources to produce another set of 634 qualified medical graduates. It is in the background of this consideration, this issue is required to be decided.5
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72. For the abovementioned reasons, I would prefer to permit the appellants to complete their study of medicine and become trained doctors to serve the nation. But at the same time there is a compelling national interest that dishonest people cannot be made to believe that “time heals everything” and the society would condone every misdeed if only they can manage to get away with their wrong doing for a considerably long period.”
8. Said principle was ultimately not applied in the case of Nidhi Kaim by larger Bench.
9. This case, however, is not of cheating, but a case of contravention of rules and the students, as observed above, have already been admitted, have pursued their studies and almost completed their courses. The students have not committed any criminal offence. These students, should not be denied the benefit of taking the examination and obtaining a degree.
10. In the circumstances, we are not inclined to interfere in the admissions so made. However, we direct that this order as well as the impugned order are not to be treated as precedent in any other case.
11. The special leave petitions and all pending applications stand disposed of accordingly.
(Jagdish Chander) (Sarita Purohit)
Branch Officer AR-cum-PS