Supreme Court Rejects Dental College's Plea Seeking Extension Of Deadline For BDS Admissions

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain plea filed by a Dental College seeking directions to Dental Council of India and Union of India for extension of admissions deadline to BDS UG course for its 100 seats to enable the college to effect admissions to their duly approved 100 seats for the academic year 2021-22.

The writ petition also sought directions to the respondent authorities specifically to the State of MP to conduct a centralised common counselling specifically for the Petitioner institution, spanning over a minimum period of 15 days for allotting students to their institution for the academic year 2021-22.

"Last moment decisions create a lot of disharmony." a bench comprising Justice Abdul Nazeer and Justice PS Narasimha remarked.

During the hearing, Senior Advocate NK Kaul, appearing for the petitioner, every concerned authority said that the institute has fully complied with the regulations and even the Dental council had given them complete certificates.

"The counselling is also over. Those are running institutions, yours is a new institutions. You've been given a new phase of life", the bench said.

Mr Kaul submitted that their institution is not new and has been running from 2000. However, it was shut down because of demonetisation and financial problems for three years.

"From February we've been writing to them, if Union of India sits on it for three months and does nothing, why should I suffer? Procrastination from the state should not lead to these 100 seats going to waste." Mr Kaul submitted

"It would be jeopardising so many things. You'll have to wait." the bench said

"I suffered for no fault of mine. Dental council wrote to them four months ago." Mr Kaul said

"Next year you can try. There's already a two years gap. It's a longish thing. In a running college, it would be a different matter, in your case it's different. Last moment decisions create a lot of disharmony." the bench said

The present petition filed through Advocate Abhikalp Pratap Singh has argued that the petitioner institution could not participate at all in the counselling and admission process conducted by the State that concluded on 14.05.2022.

According to the petition, the approval of the petitioner institution for the current academic year 2021-22 was issued by the Government of India highly belatedly in the noon hours of 14th May 2022, which was non-working day followed by another non working day. Therefore, the Petitioner was not at all included in the counselling process which was concluded by then, nor could it affect admissions to their BDS dental courses.

According to the petition, the Petitioner institution ran into serious financial trouble post demonetization in the year 2017 and defaulted in repayment of various loan amounts. The Dental Council of India on the basis of a decision of its Executive Committee at its meeting decided to recommend the Central Government for stopping the admissions of both the BDS and MDS Courses in the Petitioners' Institution from the academic year 2019-20 onwards.

Further, the Union of India, while acting on the recommendation decided to restrain the management of the Petitioner Institution from admitting any students in both BDS as well as MDS Courses with effect from the academic session of 2019-20.

Thereafter the Petitioner challenged the the decision before the High Court and then approached the Supreme Court. The court permitted the Petitioner to negotiate a settlement with the Bank and make a representation for cancellation of 'no admission order' against the UOI.

The Petitioner immediately started representing the matter simultaneously to the DCI as well as the Union of India through emails & letters for revoking their 'No Admission Status'.

According to the petition, the Petitioner gave repeated representations for expediting the decision-making process so that they can participate in the counselling process, but of no avail. However, despite the same, the Respondent authorities chose to keep the matter dilly-dally and eventually the communication was issued at a time when the whole process was over.

Case Title: Modern Dental College & Research Centre vs Union of India & Ors.

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