Don’t keep MBBS seats vacant for candidates: SC

Don’t keep MBBS seats vacant for candidates: SC

Dhananjay.Mahapatra@timesofindia.com 10.11.2024

New Delhi : Supreme Court has disapproved of HC interim orders to keep a MBBS seat vacant in a medical college for a candidate alleging unfair denial of admission and said such a direction can be passed only in exceptional circumstances when a candidate presents a strong prima facie case. 

The order was passed by a bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan who faced a piquant situation when two colleges approached SC saying HC, which had kept seats reserved for candidates, dismissed the petitions later and as deadline for admission was over, the seats will now remain vacant for the entire course period (five years), causing huge loss to them. 

Writing the judgment, Justice Viswanathan said, “Only if there is a cast iron case for the petitioner and the petitioner is bound to succeed in cases where error of the respondent is so gross as to negate any other conclusion, interim orders keeping seats vacant could be made.” The bench said courts certainly have the power to keep a seat reserved for candidates who have proved a prima facie strong case for their admission to a college, but the court must do so with “great caution and circumspection”. “In appropriate cases, even where the said exceptional criterion as set out above is met, the court will be justified in directing the petitioner to provide security, to the college-institution concerned where the seat is ultimately directed to be kept vacant or on whom ultimately the liability of the vacant seat would fall,” the bench said.