- (1.) Special leave granted.
(2.) This Civil appeal arises out of a common judgment of the High court of Patna whereby 4 writ petitions before the High court being Civil Writ jurisdiction Cases Nos. 911, 933, 1081 and 1140 of 1994 were disposed of. The question involved in the writ petitions was as to the mode of allotment of seats in the various branches of the postgraduate medical courses in the state of Bihar. The authorities had made provisions for reservation of seats for the underprivileged sections, like the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled tribes, the extremely Backward Class, the Backward Class and ladies. The procedure adopted for allotment of seats in the postgraduate medical courses led to some dissatisfaction giving rise to the litigation.
(3.) The Controller of Examinations, Health Services, government of bihar, Patna issued the prospectus for the competitive test for admission to postgraduate courses in Patna Medical College, Patna, Darbhanga Medical college, Laheria Sarai, Rejendra Medical College, Ranchi and Mahatma gandhi Medical College, Jamshedpur for the year 1992. On the question of reservation the prospectus had the following clause: "The reservation of seats for various categories shall be as per the decision of the government. There will be no economic criteria for the reservation. About selection and allotment of seats, the relevant clause in Part VI of the prospectus was as under: "Vi.selection.- (ii) Merit list will be prepared on the basis of the marks obtained in the PGMAT and the choice of subject/course and institution will be given on merit-cum-choice basis as indicated by the candidate in the application form provided the candidate fulfil other criteria laid down in the prospectus. "the qualifying marks for eligibility were 50% in the Post Graduate Medical admission Test, but for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, the qualifying marks were only 40%.;