Lay Guidelines On Filling Up Seats In Private Nursing Institutions That Remain Vacant After Rounds Of Counselling: High Court To Haryana Govt

Observing that Haryana government has "not bothered to notify any such procedure till today", the Punjab & Haryana High Court has directed the State to lay down specific guidelines on filing up of seats that remain vacant after prescribed rounds of counselling in Private aided and unaided Nursing Institutions.

A Division bench of Justice Ritu Bahri and Justice Manisha Batra said, "the State of Haryana has not bothered to notify any such procedure till today and this has resulted in failure on its part to evolve a transparent method of admission in the private nursing institutions. The State of Haryana, is therefore, directed to lay down specific guidelines qua filling up such seats in private aided/unaided nursing institutions that are remaining vacant/left over after the prescribed rounds of counselling."

Such guidelines be laid down within three months positively so that such like situation as has arisen in this case is avoided in future. The State will send a report to this Court after taking a decision, it added further.

The Court was hearing the plea filed by a society running various college, one of which is Mahabir College of Nursing situated at Ambala City. The petitioner was seeking quashing of the orders  of cancellation of admissions by the affiliated university granted to the students by the college. 

According to the petitioners, in 2019 after two rounds of counselling done by the university, the seats of the college was left vacant. Allegedly, the college made various requests for the counselling session in order to fill the seats but the university did not respond. Therefore,  counselling was done in the College without the presence of the observer and 31 students in B.Sc. Nursing Course, 32 students in Post Basic B.Sc. Nursing Course and 16 students in M.Sc. Nursing course were admitted.

The petitioner submitted registration returns of students admitted in all the three courses in January 2020 to the University which along with the fees deposited had been accepted by it.

However, the University cancelled the admissions of the students admitted by the petitioner by writing a letter and intimating that the admissions were not as per University Counselling and had been made by the College at its own level.

Considering the submissions, the Court opined, "action of granting admissions at its own was nothing but attempt to overreach the process of law as it was not permissible for the College to have conducted private counselling and grant admissions."

The College was affiliated with the respondent No.2 (Kurukshetra University) and fell within its supervisory control so far as maintenance of standards of education was concerned, which also included the admission of students in the College. The admissions were obviously given by the College by way of backdoor entry and the respondent by passing a speaking order had right observed that such course was strictly unacceptable and reflected the intent of the College to disobey the duly promulgated order of the State Government, bench added further.

The Court also clarified that mere deposition of registration fees and filing registration returns did not confer any right on the students for regularization when mandatory procedure to justify the merit had not been followed and obviously it was also known to the students that their admissions were not made by following the prescribed procedure and the same were made on provisional basis.

 It was noted that a writ petition filed by the students in 2020 wherein they were allowed to take part in first year exam, however in the present petition the they did not choose to become party. The Court highlighted that only 9 students passed in the M.Sc. course and 2 in B.Sc. course.

"In our opinion, permitting the petitioner to regularize the admissions of the above 79 students or to let them appear in their examination for the subsequent years that too without any prayer being made by themselves in this regard and then giving any direction to respondent No.2 to declare their results, would certainly tantamount of subversion of law which is not at all justified as the same would further amount to misplaced sympathy in favour of the petitioner and those students," the Court opined.

Adding that advantage already gained by the petitioner by seeking interim relief of letting the 79 students appear in examination of 1st year courses, the Court said, "if permitted to be retained further would not only jeopardise the purity of the selection process but would also embolden the errant educational institutions.

The Court remarked that candidates into a sense of complacency and impunity that gains achieved by such wrongs could be retained by appeal to the sympathy of the Court and should not be permitted.

Appearance: Arjun Pratap Atma Ram, Advocate, for the petitioner.

Mamta Singla Talwar, DAG, Haryana.

 Nilesh Bhardwaj, Advocate, for respondent No.2-University.

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (PH) 210

Title: The Mahabir Education Welfare Society v. The State of Haryana and others

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