Madras High Court Allows Student To Continue In MBBS Course After Wrongly Choosing BDS Course During Counselling

The bench of Justice R Subramaniam and Justice Sunder Mohan observed that it could not agree with the State's hyper-technical contention and give capital punishment for a genuine mistake committed by the student. The court also noted that the Instructions stated that once a candidate opts for upgradation and gets allotted an upgraded seat, he has to relinquish the seat from previous rounds and join the upgraded seat. The court observed that the Rule was not applicable in the present case, as it dealt with the degradation of the seat and not upgradation.

“The language used is very clear and it applies only to upgradation and not to degradation. What has happened to this unfortunate candidate is, having been allotted a MBBS seat in the first round, he has been pushed to BDS, which is undoubtedly a degradation. Hence, we do not think this Rule can be invoked by the authorities to deny a seat to the said student,” the court said.

The court thus refused to interfere with the order of the single judge which had directed the authorities to offer the seat that was originally allotted to the student in the first round. The single judge had observed that when a person commits an inadvertent error, which was common, particularly due to anxiety, that mistake could not be put against him. The single judge had thus noted that merely because a mistake was committed by the student while making his choice for upgradation, it could not be said that the same was deliberate to go for a lower degree course.

The court was hearing an appeal filed by the Directorate of Medical Education against the single-judge order. The Directorate contended that once the candidate opted for the BDS seat, he had to relinquish the earlier seat allotted to him in the first and second counselling.

The Student- Jubin Timothy, on the other hand, submitted that he had made a genuine and inadvertent mistake while selecting colleges in the third round of counselling. He submitted that while he had rightly selected Government Medical College in the first two rounds of allotment, in the third round, he had erroneously chosen Government Dental College. He also submitted that upon realising the mistake, he had immediately sent an email to the Selection Committee and the Directorate of Medical Education informing them of the same and requesting them to re-fix his allotment on the basis of correct choices.

Timothy further submitted that though he had requested the authorities to atleast permit him to retain the already allotted MBBS seat, the authorities rejected his grievance which was arbitrary, unreasonale, unjust and illegal.

Noting that Timothy was a very bright student and even obtained State first in ICSE Board of Studies in 12^th Standard, and considering the language adopted in the Rule, the court decided not to interfere with the single judge's order that condoned his mistake.

Counsel for the Appellants: Mr.J.Ravindran, Additional Advocate General Assisted by Mr.SRA.Ramachandran, Additional Government Pleader

Counsel for the Respondent: Mr.Isaac Mohanlal, Senior Counsel for M/s.Isaac Chambers, Mr.K.Govindarajan Deputy Solicitor General of India

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Mad) 402

Case Title: The Director, Directorate of Medical Education and Research and Others v Jubil Timothy and Others

Case No: W.A.(MD)No.2136 of 2024