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1. By this petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner seeks to direct the respondents to fill the vacant seats for the batch 2011-2013 and call upon the petitioner for admission in IIM Shillong.

2. The petitioner before this court is a student aspiring to seek admission in Post Graduate Programme in Management Course 2011-2013 Batch in IIM Shillong i.e. the respondent no. 2 herein, after having qualified the common entrance test (CAT 2011-2013) with 94.16 percentile. The case of the petitioner is that he had applied to seek admission in respondent no.2 institute and was shortlisted for personal interview and group discussion which was held on 22.3.2011. It is further the case of the petitioner that his name was shortlisted for admission in the said course and his rank was 54 in the augmented waiting list of general category. The petitioner has further averred that he continued to check his status from the website of the respondent no.2 and on 13.6.2011, his rank was shown at serial no.4 in the said waiting list as per the list placed by the respondent on their website. On telephonically enquiring, the petitioner also got to know that there were still 14 vacancies to be filled up by the respondent no.2 and being at rank no.4 in the augmented waiting list, the petitioner had a legitimate expectation to get admission in the said course in respondent No. 2 institute. It is also the case of the petitioner that on 5.7.2011, the petitioner got two mails from the web based on-line system of the respondent no.2, one with the information that the admissions are closed and the other one stating that the petitioner is still at the position no.4 in the waiting list. After having learnt the said status, the petitioner vide email dated 6.7.2011 made a request to the respondent no.2 to consider his candidature for the grant of admission in view of the availability of the seats but because of no response from the side of the respondent no.2, the petitioner vide his application dated 7.7.2011, moved by him under the Right to Information Act sought information from the respondent no.1 regarding the funds invested by the Central Government in IIMs, especially the respondent no.2 and in reply thereto, the respondent no.1 supplied the relevant information which shows that the Government is incurring an expenditure of Rs. 120.67 crores (non-recurring over a period of 5 years) and Rs.45.08 crores (recurring over a period of six years) for the IIM Shillong, and the grant for IIM Shillong for the year 2010-2011 was Rs.2519 lacs. The petitioner has also averred that the annual fee charged by the respondent no.2 per student is Rs.5 lacs and if 14 seats remain vacant then the same will result in a total loss of Rs.140 lacs. It is also the case of the petitioner that it is not for the first time that the respondent no.2 is very casually leaving the seats unfilled as last year respondent no.2 gave admission to only 94 students and thereby wasted 26 seats and caused a loss of approximately 2.5 crores and still the respondent no.1 is not taking any action against the respondent no.2 which is acting in such an arbitrary manner against the larger public interest at the cost of public money. In the background of the aforesaid facts, the petitioner has preferred the present petition.

7. The petitioner before this Court is an IIM aspirant seeking admission in the course of Post Graduate Programme in Management with the IIM, Shillong, respondent No.2 herein. It is not in dispute between the parties that the petitioner had duly qualified the highly competitive entrance test, CAT, having secured 94.16 percentile. Indisputably, the success in said Common Entrance Test (CAT) only entitles a candidate to seek admission in various IIMs, imparting education in the field of management and certainly the best student gets admission in an IIM according to his merit and the students higher in rank in the CAT results get a chance to get admission in the higher placed IIMs and in any case no student after doing well in the CAT examination would leave any stone unturned to secure his admission in any of the IIMs.

It is also not in dispute that every IIM has further laid down its own stage wise selection criteria to give admission to the candidates qualifying the said CAT exam and it is only after these candidates satisfy the laid down requirements of those IIMs where they give option in order of priority, that they are able to finally get admission. At a given time, any candidate may try his luck not confining to one or two such institutes, but may be more, so as to ensure his admission in one of the IIMs. The petitioner herein had opted to seek his admission in IIM, Shillong and he was shortlisted for personal interview and group discussion which was held on 22.03.2011. The petitioner was also declared successful in the said test conducted by the respondent No.2 and was shown at Sl.No.54 in the augmented waiting list in the general category. As per the petitioner, he continuously checked the website of the respondent No.2 and his rank from the period from 25.04.2011 to 12.06.2011 remained at the same position i.e. rank No.54. It is also the case of the petitioner that on 13.06.2011, his position improved to rank No.4 in the general category and this status of the petitioner at Sl.No.4 in the waiting list continued till the closing of the admissions by the respondent No.2. The petitioner was shocked when he came to know that the respondent No.2 was yet to fill 14 seats and even with the availability of these seats, the petitioner was not accommodated, although he was at Sl.No.4 in the waiting list of the general category. As per the petitioner, he took up the matter with the respondent No.2 vide his email dated 06.07.2011 with a request to grant him admission in view of the availability of the seats, but there was no response from the side of the respondent No.2. The petitioner has also raised a grievance that on one hand, the Central Government has been investing several crores of rupees to create more opportunities for the aspiring management students and on the other hand the respondent No.2 has closed the admissions without filling all the vacant seats, causing immense national waste. The petitioner has also submitted that the grant-in-aid released by the Central Government in favour of the respondent No.2-institute for the year 2010-11 is Rs.2519 lacs and non-filling of the vacant seats by the respondent No.2-institute is against the larger public interest at the cost of wasting public money. The petitioner has also submitted that out of 2,40,000 candidates who had appeared in the CAT exam, only about 1800 candidates were declared successful and even this small percentage of successful candidates are not able to secure admission in IIMs, as the vacancy position in IIMs nowhere matches the candidates who qualify the CAT examination and this wastage of seats by all the IIMs further deprives the successful candidates. The petitioner has also taken a stand that he cannot be denied admission even at this stage on the plea of the respondent that the said admission being at the midstream stage when the students have already completed their foundation course and the petitioner will not be able to catch up in studies with other students. The contention raised by counsel for the petitioner is that the petitioner cannot be made to suffer for the fault of the respondent No.2, as it was incumbent upon the respondent No.2 to have ensured filling up the entire seats before the start of the academic session.

12. The Indian Institute of Management or IIMs, as they are called, are India's elite business schools and are a brand to reckon with, both in India and abroad. The IIM graduates form not only the cream of India's business bigwigs but are wooed by the foreign companies alike. The tag of being an IIM graduate is for a lifetime and it is a dream of many a lot to be part of this prestigious alumni. IIM Shillong is the younger lot of the IIMs, established to give the IIM experience to more hopefuls. Such a premier institute is expected to act fairly and transparently and justify the money and funds that are allocated for them by the Government. The approach of the respondent no.2 of not filling all the 120 seats for the said course of PGP is whimsical and capricious to say the least. It is not expected of such a highly reputed educational institute to act in an arbitrary manner and had this petitioner not been before the court, the practice of leaving the seats vacant unreasonably by the respondent no.2 would not have come to light. It is the bounden duty of every educational institute to justify the funds being diverted for them. In the time of cut throat competition today, every seat can make or mar the life of a student and the amount of time and effort that goes to prepare and finally qualify such a competitive examination like CAT goes down the drain due to the high handedness of the institutes in wasting the seats, despite having world class infrastructure and top notch faculty at their disposal. This court severely condemns the unsavoury and unpalatable practice of not filling the 22 vacant seats of the respondent no.2 with the admonition that in future its conduct in this regard should not be dubitable. There can be no dispute with regard to the judgments of the Madras High Court, Kerala High Court and Patna High Court cited by the petitioner holding that the seats should not go waste in educational institutes and therefore for wasting the seats and now the time having passed to undertake the entire admission process again, this court deems it appropriate to impose a cost of Rs. 1 lakh on the respondent no.2 to be paid to the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund (PMNRF) within a period of 4 weeks from the date of this order.