LALITA SHURI TIKKU Vs. STATE OF JAMMU AND KASHMIR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE seven applications for an appropriate writ directing the respondents to admit the petitioners to the Medical College, Srinagar raise common questions of law and fact and would, therefore, be disposed of by one common judgment.

(2.) THE facts leading to the presentation of these petitions may be briefly summarized as follows:-By a notification issued by the Principal Medical College Srinagar, applications were invited for admission to the 1st year of MBBS course of the said college. The minimum qualification under the Notification was that the candidate must have passed either F. Sc. Medical group or Pre Medical examination of any recognized university. A large number of candidates including the petitioners applied for admission to the Government Medical College, Srinagar and after the candidates were interviewed by a selection board, a merit list was prepared by the Principal and forwarded to the Government through the Secretary General department.

(3.) THE allegation of the petitions is that although the petitioner's names were pretty high in the original merit list submitted by the Principal, yet the Government with an intention of making an arbitrary selection, asked for a revised list in which the petitioners were placed very much below and ultimately 75 candidates from the Slate were selected for admission to the Government Medical College. Srinagar. The petitioner's case is that while selecting the candidates the Government ignored the cases of the petitioners who had secured much higher marks than the candidates who have actually' been selected. It is also stated by the petitioners that the selection was made purely on the basis of caste, creed rather than on merit. The petitioners further complained of hostile discrimination at the hands of the Slate which is in direct contravention of the provisions of Articles 14, 15 and 29 of the Constitution of India. The petitioners have further submitted that although some sort of reservations are alleged to have been made for scheduled caste and the residents of Jammu, but there also the selection was made by discriminating between the candidates inter se rather than selecting candidates from a class as a whole. In writ petition No. 69 of 1965 Kumari Bilori alleges that she belongs to scheduled caste and although she secured much higher marks than other candidates who have been selected from the scheduled caste, her claim was completely ignored and a discrimination was thus made as between the class itself.