Supreme Court Criticises HC Order Which Allowed Provisional College Admission Despite SC Staying Similar Order Of Previous Year

Dealing with the issue of colleges being permitted to participate in admission process on the strength of interim judicial orders, the Supreme Court recently called out the Madhya Pradesh High Court for passing an order akin to the one stayed by the top Court last year, saying that the practice was not in conformity with "judicial propriety".

A bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan observed that inspite of several orders passed by the Supreme Court deprecating the practice of High Courts permitting colleges to participate in admission process by interim orders, the MP High Court again passed an interim order permitting respondent No.1-college to participate in the admission process.

"We are surprised by the impugned order passed by the High Court...We are of the view that the said practice is not in consonance with the judicial propriety. When an interim order for an earlier year was passed by this Court, the High Court ought to have given due weightage to it", it said.

Briefly put, in November, 2023, the High Court passed an order permitting the respondent-college to provisionally participate in the ongoing counselling for admission to the BAMS(Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery) degree course for 2023-2024 for sixty seats. By a second order, the High Court extended the date of counselling for one day.

The two orders were challenged by the National Commission for the System of Indian Medicine (appellant No.1) before the Supreme Court. Observing that the impugned orders were liable to cause great prejudice to students in the event of writ petition failing, the Supreme Court stayed the High Court's orders (for the academic year 2023-24).

In September this year, however, the High Court again passed an order, similar to the one stayed by the Supreme Court, for academic year 2024-2025. This order was challenged by appellant No.1 in the present proceedings.

During the hearing, it was pleaded on behalf of the respondent-college that no student had been admitted for academic year 2024-2025 pursuant to the interim order passed by the High Court.

Accordingly, the Supreme Court set aside the High Court's order and remitted the matter back to it for fresh consideration. It further directed the appellant to "bring to the notice of the Division Bench of the High Court the fact regarding the pendency of the writ petition and the special leave petition concerning the academic year 2023-24".

Counsels for appellants: ASG Archana Pathak Dave; AoR Ankita Chaudhary; Advocates Parmod Vishnoi, Prashant Kumar, Avnish Dave, Shreyas Balaji, Vaibhav Dwivedi, and Raghav Sharma

Counsels for respondents: Senior Advocates DS Naidu and K Parmeswar; AoR Nishant Kumar; Advocate Animesh Kumar

Case Title: NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR INDIAN SYSTEM OF MEDICINE v. VEENA VADINI AYURVED COLLEGE AND HOSPITAL, C.A. No. 010938 / 2024 (and connected case)

Citation : 2024 LiveLaw (SC) 780

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