Karnataka HC Imposes Cost On Two Dental Colleges Litigating For Non-Admitted Candidates, Deprecates 'Speculative' Litigations

A division bench of Justice B Veerappa and Justice K.S.Hemalekha directed Venkateshwara Dental College and Hospital and KVG Dental College & Hospital to deposit the cost amount with the Advocates' Association of Bengaluru within a period of one month.

The colleges along with few students desirous of getting admission to BDS courses had approached the court claiming that the website/portal of the Karnataka Examination Authority, which facilitates the registration to the course, was not at all open due to the reasons best known to them and therefore, petitioner-students could not register themselves in terms of the schedule announced by the Medical Counselling Committee for Mop-up round 2 counselling for BDS 2021.

Therefore, the petitioner No.1-institutions addressed a letter to KEA, requesting the authority to permit the petitioner-students to register and facilitate their admission.

However, since the Authority did not make their website/ portal available for the petitioner students to register on 2nd and 3rd of May for Mop-up round 2 counselling for BDS 2021, they could not register and get the admission to the Dental course. Therefore, the petitioner No.1- institutions and the petitioner-students approached the court.

Findings:

At the outset, the bench noted that the petitioners have not made out any statutorily enforceable right to issue a writ in the nature of mandamus and thus, they are not entitled to any relief under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution.

Referring to the statement of objections filed by KEA, wherein it had specifically contended that for the Academic Year 2021-22 the website/portal was open for online registration process by the eligible NEET qualified students and was extended several times, the bench observed,

"The petitioners have not denied the specific averments made at paragraph-4 of the statement of objections specifying the dates on which the online registration process was open for the eligible candidates to register with the Karnataka Examination Authority nor produced any contra documents to the effect that the Karnataka State e-Information Bulletin containing the calendar of events issued is not meant for registration to BDS course for the year 2021."

Rejecting the contention of the colleges that it approached the authority requesting to open the portal for registration the bench said, "Petitioners No.1-colleges being the Management, are not the aggrieved parties to address letter to the respondent No.3 praying to open the website/portal. It is only the students who can seek such prayer, if they are so aggrieved. Only the students who are qualified in NEET can approach the respondent No.3. The representation made by the college has no consequence."

Noting that in the cause title of the petition the address of the students is mentioned to be the address of the college, the bench expressed,

"We are bowled over as to how the students come under the 'care of' the college of which they are not the students at all. This clearly indicates, only with an intention to fill up the vacant seats, the petitioner No.1-colleges have adopted the indirect method of getting an order from the Court and therefore, have not approached the Court with clean hands."

It added that if the petitioner-students were really deprived of the seats to which they were eligible, they would have approached the Court, independently, by producing the documents showing the illegality committed by the respondents. However, that was not the case. "The colleges cannot step into the shoes of students and file the writ petitions."

It held that a writ of mandamus sought by the petitioners No.1- colleges on behalf of the students who are not admitted into the college is not maintainable. "Filing and contesting these types of litigation is nothing but wasting precious public time and that of this Court and is nothing but harassing the respondent-authorities unnecessarily, by driving them to the Court and making them spend litigation expenses etc."

Trend of Speculative litigation on the rise

The bench observed that because of petitioners No.1-college, the petitioner-students approached the Court believing that they will obtain relief and they will get admission in the college. Thereby, the precious time of the petitioner-students was wasted, so also that of the Court, depriving other genuine litigants.

It then opined, "The experience of this Court is that in recent years there has emerged a trend of filing speculative litigations before various Courts of law, not just in the Court of first instance, but also in the High Court as well as before the Hon'ble Supreme Court. It is the duty of the Courts to ensure that such litigations shall be weeded out at the first instance rather than allowing to be festered and thereby coming in the way of genuine litigants seeking justice treating the Court as "Temple of Justice" and to protect precious public & judicial time of the court."

Case Title: VENKATESHWARA DENTAL COLLEGE AND HOSPITAL v. THE STATE OF KARNATAKA

Case No: WRIT PETITION No.12902 OF 2022 (EDN-MED ADM) C/W WRIT PETITION No.12946 OF 2022 (EDN-MED ADM)

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Kar) 394

Date of Order: 07TH DAY OF SEPTEMBER, 2022

Appearance: Advocate KRISHNA T for petitioners; LAXMINARAYAN, ADDITIONAL GOVERNMENT ADVOCATE FOR R1 & R2; N.K. RAMESH, ADVOCATE FOR R3; ADITYA BHAT, ADVOCATE FOR G.S.BHAT, ADVOCATE FOR R4; V.C.SUDEEP, CENTRAL GOVERNMENT STANDING COUNSEL FOR R5; SUMANA BALIGA, ADVOCATE FOR R6; ASHOK N. NAYAK, ADVOCATE FOR R7.

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