- (1.) Petitioner Manharan Singh Gill has filed the present writ petition under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India for issuance of a writ, order or direction commanding the respondents to admit him to MBBS Course in the reserve category of disabled persons on account of hearing impairment for which he had applied and was called for counselling but not admitted despite being fully eligible in every respect, on account of arbitrary, discriminatory and illegal action of the respondents at the time of counselling.
(2.) The case set up by the petitioner is that he appeared in the Punjab Medical Entrance Test-2000 (for short PMET-2000). He is a disabled person having hearing impairment and as such had applied for admission in the reserve category of disabled person. He provided all the requisite certificates in this regard and was considered in the said category. However, arbitrarily and discriminatorily his claim has been rejected on undisclosed grounds,
(3.) A notification was issued by the Government of Punjab on 20.4.2000 vide which said lest was taken. The lest was to be conducted by the respondent No. 2 i.e. Baba Farid University of Health Sciences. Faridkot. This University authorised Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar to conduct the test. Resultantly, respondent No. 2 and Guru Nanak Dev University issued the prospectus for admission. According to the petitioner, he was eligible in all respects under the prospectus and so he applied for appearing in the said test in the reserve category of disabled persons. The condition with regard to eligibility is regulated by the prospectus issued in this regard. The manner of applying has also been given in the prospectus. The complete application in all respects was supposed to reach by 18.5.2000. The mode of selection was to be regulated by the prospectus. Interview was to be held at respondent No. 2. The committee consisting of Principal. GGS Govt. Medical College, Faridkot, Principals of all Medical Colleges, representative of Vice- Chancellor, Baba Farid University and Director, Social Welfare or his representative was to hold the interviews/counselling. According to the prospectus, 3% seats were reserved for disabled person which was further sub- categorised 1% for blindness or low vision; 1% for hearing impairment and 1% for orthopaedically handicap. If candidate of one category is not available, then that seat can go to other sub-category. In order to determine the disability it is provided in the prospectus that minimum loss of hearing capacity should be 40% according to the criteria laid down in the standard of ESI Corporation Act of India. For our purposes, Note 1(6) of the prospectus is relevant which can be reproduced as follows :- "Note 6 ; a) In order to decide the eligibility of a candidate for considering him/her for admission against category (vi) above, minimum loss of hearing capacity should be 40% according to the criteria laid down in the standard of ESI Corporation Act of India. b) The candidate should produce a certificate from a Professor/Associate Prof./Assistant Prof./Eye/ENT/ Orthopaedic specialist as the case may be regarding percentage of loss due to the disability, without such certificate, the candidate will not be considered for the seats reserved for this category. c) the final decision with regard lo the extent of handicap will be taken by the Board consisting of three Heads of Eye/ENT/Orthopaedics departments of Govt. Medical Colleges viz Amritsar, Patiala and Faridkot of handicap under sub-categories of a, b and c respectively.";