Delhi HC Upholds Notification Of Armed Forces Medical Service Refusing Allotment To Candidates Admitted/ Allocated Seat In MCC 3rd Counselling

The Delhi High Court recently refused to entertain an appeal challenging “last minute” notification of the Director General, Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS) preventing candidates from participating in subsequent rounds of counselling, should they commence attendance at an institution or be allotted seats by the Medical Counselling Committee in the third round of counselling.

The appeal impugned a Single Bench’s dismissal of the appellants’ prayer for quashing of the notification whereby the eligibility criteria was changed. This notification prescribed that any candidate who had joined an institution, or was allotted a seat, in 3^rd round of MCC’s counselling, would not be allotted seat in AFMS institutes.

The appellants’ grievance was that they were arbitrarily denied right to participate and take admission in the counselling session scheduled by AFMS for October 5, 2023.

They contended that the counselling processes of MCC and AFMS were completely different, yet Director General, AFMS had adopted MCC’s 3^rd round of counselling as the base round for AFMS’.

Noting that there was neither a change in the qualification/eligibility criteria nor in the selection process, A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Narula said,

“…we find no basis to fault in the decision of DGAFMS to stipulate a condition preventing candidates from participating in subsequent rounds of counselling, should they commence attendance at an institution or be allotted seats by the MCC in the third round of counselling”.

While observing that admission procedure for medical seats is subject to stringent timelines, it was highlighted that allowing perpetual participation in subsequent rounds of counselling would undermine the “efficacy and purpose of a time-bound system”.

Two of the appellants had tried to make a case of differential treatment by referring to Neha Yadav v. Union of India & Ors.

Rejecting the argument, the court explicated that the observation in Neha Yadav was to the effect that “if a candidate is not allotted a seat in the third round of counselling, then such a candidate cannot be held to be disentitled for allotment of a seat by DGAFMS”. It was added that there was no clarity w.r.t. the current status of the two appellants.

The court further emphasised that, “the stipulations in the DGAFMS Information Bulletin unambiguously stated that the counselling procedures for AFMS shall adhere to the protocols established by the MCC for postgraduate courses”. As such, the impugned notification resonated with MCC guidelines.

Underlining the fact that the impugned notification was uniformly applied to all candidates, the court dismissed the contention that the notification was arbitrary.

Reportedly, the impugned notification was issued by DG, AFMS 45 minutes prior to the actual counselling session.

Mr. Mrinal Harshvardhan, Mr. Sushant Dogra and Mr. Aayush Kumar, Advocates appeared for Appellants

Mr. Ripu Daman Bhardwaj, CGSC and Mr. Kushagra Kumar, Advocate along with Col. M. K. Mishra and Brig. V. Srivastava appeared for Respondent-UOI

Case Title: Sakshi Rathore and Ors v. Union of India and Ors

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Del) 1028

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