Merit cannot be compromised: Bombay HC in medical college fee reimbursement case

Merit can never be compromised nor can be on second pedestal, the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court observed while pulling up the Maharashtra government for implementing a medical fee reimbursement scheme in a "pick and choose" manner. [Prajwal Kasbekar v. State of Maharashtra]

In an order passed on August 3, a division bench of Justices Kishore C Sant and Ajit B Kadethankar allowed petitions filed by four general category medical students who were denied the benefit of the scheme despite losing government college seats due to EWS and SEBC reservations, and were forced to take admission in private colleges.

The Court stressed that administrative decisions cannot push academic merit into the background.

"Merit can never be compromised nor can be on second pedestal. If the petitioner was on higher rank, he could not have been denied such admission," the Court held.

The bench expressed shock over the lack of transparency in medical college admissions.

"We are constrained to mark our serious displeasure against State Authorities' 'pick and choose' method while implementing a beneficial 'one time scheme'. In fact while examining the matters in hand, we are shocked to see serious incongruity in admitting students in Government and Aided medical colleges," the order stated.

The State Government had issued a Government Resolution (GR) on September 20, 2019 which provided that it would bear the additional fees which open-category students would be required to pay if they are forced into private institutions.

However, State authorities excluded the four petitioners from the beneficiary list. State officials claimed that the petitioners lacked sufficient merit for government seats.

The petitioners disproved this claim by showing that up to 25 lower-ranked NEET candidates received fee reimbursements.

The Court drew a sports analogy to capture the injustice faced by meritorious candidates.

"It is just like a fielder succeeds for a difficult catch, but is shown to have caught beyond the border. The surprise turns into agony when the fielder learns that the borderline is silently shrunken or bartered,” the order stated.

The judges also noted with concern that not a single student from the Marathwada region was included in the beneficiary list of 106 candidates.

The Court directed the State to reimburse the tuition fee difference to the students within eight weeks. It also ordered the State to pay exemplary costs of ₹50,000 to each petitioning student.

Further, the principal secretary of the Medical Education Department to conduct an inquiry into the issues flagged in the ruling and adopt measures to prevent recurrence.

During the course of hearing the petitions, the Court had pulled up state officials for their casual approach during hearings. 

The bench had also initiated suo motu contempt against officers for skipping hearings and making false statements. This was later dropped after they tendered unconditional apologies.

Advocates Akshay D Kulkarni and Milind Madhukar Patil appeared for the students. 

Additional government pleader AR Kale appeared for State.

[Read order]