- (1.) All the petitioners herein who were applicants for Pre-Engineering Test (PET for short), 1997 along with large number of other students who could not have attained the age of 17 years on 1-10-97 had moved this Court for a direction to the Malviya Regional Engineering College, Jaipur (MREC for short) for allowing them to appear in the examination of P.E.T. '97 which was to be held in the month of June, 1997. The application forms had been submitted by the petitioners in response to an advertisement which was issued for the said purpose in which the last date for submission of forms was ear-marked as 31-3-97.
(2.) It may be stated that an entrance test for admission into the First Year Engineering Degree Course in the Engineering Colleges in the State of Rajasthan is held at Jaipur, Kota, Udaipur, Bhilwara, and Ajmer including Rajasthan State quota for other 16 Regional Engineering Colleges all over the country by a centralised admission procedure called Pre-Engineering Test (PET). It is conducted by the institution turn by turn as per the Government instructions and accordingly a Centralised Admission Co-ordination Committee was constituted by the Government of Rajasthan which was empowered to recommend rules and regulations as also lay down the required conditions of eligibility for the course. The committee accordingly in 1995 specified the minimum conditions of eligibility for admission into the PET which among other conditions, laid down that the candidates should not be less than 17 years or more than 20 years as on 1-10-95. The State Government is said to have approved this condition vide its order dated 9-2-95. This clause prescribing a particular age limit was however, relaxed in the year 1995 as this had not been mentioned in the information booklet but in the subsequent years i.e. since 1996, this was reintroduced and the respondent-M.R.E.C. as per the decision of the Government of Rajasthan issued advertisement for holding Pre-Engineering Test laying down that a candidate appearing for PET-97 should not be less than 17 years of age or more than 20 years of age as on 1-10-97.
(3.) This gave rise to a common cause to all the students who would not have completed the age of 17 years on 1-10-97 but were otherwise eligible to appear in the PET-97, to challenge the clause prescribing minimum age for appearing in the PET examination.;