ANJU KISHOR T. Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners in these writ petitions are applicants under the sports quota for admission to the professional courses in the State of Kerala under the Kerala Engineering Architecture Medical Entrance Examination (KEAM), 2019 conducted by the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations. The petitioners in both the writ petitions had applied for admission in the MBBS course under the sports quota.

(2.) It is contended that the prospectus specified that applications under the sports quota have to be submitted along with copies of all relevant certificates of achievements by 28.02.2019. The petitioners challenge the eligibility of respondents 6 and 7 to be included in the sports quota for admission to professional courses in the year 2019. It is contended that the last date for submission of online application as per the prospectus was initially fixed as 28.02.2019 which was later extended to 04.03.2019. The last date for submission of documents in support of the eligibility for admission in the sports quota was 31.03.2019. It is contended that a reading of the relevant provisions of the prospectus would make it clear that the eligibility conditions for admission in the sports quota was to be ascertained as on the last date for submission of the applications.

(3.) It is stated that revised eligibility criteria for sports quota was issued by Government Order dated 07.03.2019, which was under challenge in W.P.(C) No.18203/2019. A draft eligibility list was prepared by the Commissioner on the basis of priority and grace marks and the writ petitioners were included as serial Nos.21 and 71. The 6th respondent was included as serial No.56 and the 7th respondent as serial No.11. However, a final eligibility list was prepared with the petitioners being shown as serial Nos.23 and 74 with 58 and 43 marks respectively, while the 7 th respondent was included as serial No.1 with 76 marks and the 6 th respondent was included as serial No.61 with 50 marks. It is stated that later, a category wise list in rank order was issued on 28.06.2019 for admission to the sports quota. The petitioners in these writ petitions were ranked as 5 and 6 respectively while respondents 6 and 7 were ranked as 4 and 1 respectively. It is stated that the documents produced as Ext.P7 in W.P.(C) No.23341/2019 and Ext.P10 in W.P.(C) No.21685/2019 would reveal that the Kerala team did not secure the first three positions in the South Zone Men and Women Senior competitions and as such, the claim of the 6 th respondent is doubtful. Reliance is also placed on documents and photographs from the website of the 5 th respondent to show that the claim of the 7th respondent is dubious since the first place in SAF Games was acquired after 04.03.2019, which is the last date for submission of applications.