Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

4. The Supreme Court delivered judgment in Unnikrishnan J.P. etc. v. State of Andhra Pradesh 1993 (1) JT (SC) 474 : (AIR 1993 SC 2178 on Feb. 4, 1993. Their Lordships evolved a scheme for regulating admission to professional colleges and directed the recognising and affiliating authorities to enforce the same by incorporating the guideline in the conditions and stipulations for the grant of recognition and as a condition of continued affiliation. In so far as relevant for the present purpose the expression "professional colleges" in the said scheme included Medical Colleges established by private educational institutions. The expression 'appropriate authority' was defined to mean the Government, University or other authority as is competent to grant permission to establish or to grant recognition to a professional college. The expression 'competent authority' was defined to mean the Government/ University or other authority as may be designated by the Government/ University or by law as is competent to allot students for admission to various professional colleges in the given State. Fifty per cent seats in every professional college was to be filled by the nominees of the Government or University. They were referred to as free seats. The remaining fifty per cent seats were called payment seats. The category of NRIs was not specifically mentioned. Sub-paragraph (6) of paragraph 118 of the report in JT at page 534 laid down that every State Government shall forthwith constitute a Committee to fix the ceiling on the fees chargeable by a professional college. This was followed by the persons who were to constitute that committee and the broad procedure to be adopted by that committee in fixing the fee once every three years or at such longer intervals as it may think appropriate.

5. A number of review petitions were filed in the judgment arising out of Unnikrishnan (supra). The review petitions were disposed of by the same Constitution Bench and copy of the order is Annexure PI. It has been reported as Unnikrishnan J.P. etc. v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1993) 4 SCC 111. The professional colleges were allowed to admit non NRIs to the extent of 5 per cent of their total intake out of payment seats. In view of the different backgrounds from which the applicants were to come, it was further directed that the management of the college concerned would judge the inter se merit of such candidates having regard to relevant factors. The fee payable by such students was to be the one prescribed by the committee referred to in clause (6) of the scheme to which reference has been made above. The above order is dated May 14, 1993.

7. The case of the petitioner-DMC is that neither the State Government nor the Punjab University took any steps to constitute the committee as per directions in Unnikrishnan. The petitioner, therefore, wrote a letter Annexure P4 dated May 28, 1993, to the Chief Minister, Punjab, pointing out that in the absence of the Committee as per directions of the Supreme Court the process of admissions was being held up. It was, therefore, requested that the committee be constituted to go into the question of determination of fees to be charged from the students for seeking admission to MBBS Course Session 1993. It was further stated that the college would abide by the division of seats according to the guidelines given by the Supreme Court. Having failed to get any response, the petitioner wrote another letter Annexure P5 dated July 24, 1993, reiterated its request for determination of the fee structure to be charged from the students seeking admission for the year 1993. Another letter Annexure P-6 dated June 29, 1993/July 3, 1993, was written by the College to the Secretary to Government, Punjab, Technical Education and Industrial Training, on the same subject. Copies of these letters had inter alia been sent to the Vice Chancellor, Punjab University. The Punjab University wrote to the petitioner vide Annexure P3 dated August 10, 1993. The University referred to its earlier letter dated July 22, 1993, communicating to the College about the distribution of seats in terms of the Supreme Court judgment in Unnikrishnan. It was further stated that the University did not consider it expedient to implement decision of the Supreme Court in peacemeal i.e. one part relating to determination of the fee structure, on the one hand, and the other part relating to distribution of seats amongst the various categories, on the other hand. The earlier communication dated July 22, 1993, was sought to be superseded by the said Memo dated August 10, 1993, and the college was informed that both in the matter of fee structure as well as distribution of seats the college shall follow the same criteria for admissions during the session 1993-94 as had been approved by the Syndicate of the University for admissions for the previous session 1992-93. On the basis of letter Annexure P3 dated August 10, 1993, DMC filled 18 seats with NRIs as had been done by it in the preceding year 1992-93.

18. For the present purposes, it is necessary to bear in mind that there were two matters before their Lordships of the Supreme Court. One was relating to the fee structure and the other allocation of seats between NRIs and others. A careful perusal of the various orders, to which reference has been made in the foregoing part of this judgment, leaves no manner of doubt that whereas the question of fee structure was to be settled by. the State Governments concerned on the basis of recommendations of the Committees about which guidelines had been given in Unnikrishnan and which were to be constituted by the State Governments, the question of allocation of seats was not left to be decided by the State Government with or without the assistance of any Committee. It was decided by the Supreme Court and the percentage of the total intake from out of payment seats was laid down by the Supreme Court for NRI category from time to time. There is no dispute that initially the said percentage was 5 per cent as per decision AnnexureP-1 (reported as (1993) 4 SCC 111 which was raised to 15 per cent by order Annexure P2 dated October 7, 1993, for the year 1993-94. For the following year 1994-95, the said percentage has been fixed at 10 per cent vide order Annexure P7 dated May 13, 1994. There was no ambiguity about the aforesaid number of NRI seats in so far as the petitioner is concerned. That being so, it was neither open to the State Government nor to the affiliating University to postpone the implementation of the order of the Supreme Court in contravention of the direction that the order was to be implemented from the year 1993-94 onwards. To that extent, the decision of the Punjab University in the letter of the Registrar Annexure P3 was erroneous and without jurisdiction. In fact, the State Government was not required to take any action in so far as allocation of seats for NRIs is concerned, which was a matter which stood settled by the Supreme Court. A perusal of the correspondence relied on by the petitioner, namely, Annexures P4 to P6 itself shows that the petitioner entertained no doubt at all that as per the direction then in force the number of NRI seats was 5 per cent and it was expressly admitted in these letters that the said percentage gave to the NRIs 4 sets. In other words, in the correspondence there was no dispute with regard to the number of NRI seats and the real subject-matter of the correspondence was constitution of the Committee envisaged by their Lordships in Unnikrishnan's case to go into the question of fee structure. Viewed in this context, there was absolutely no occasion for the University to have gone at a tangent and to have permitted the DMC to go ahead and fill 25 per cent seats for the year 1993-94 in total contravention of the directions of the Supreme Court. On this ground as well, the letter Annexure P3 dated August 10, 1993, of the Punjab University can never operate to permit or regularise 18 seats for the NRIs for the year 1993-94.