'Fit to grant one opportunity': Supreme Court regularises MBBS admission on invalid ST certificate

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has approved the 2016 admission of a girl to MBBS course under Scheduled Tribe category, since her caste certificate got invalidated only in 2022, by then, she finished her course and secured admission in PG course, albeit in general category.

A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and K V Vishwanathan, however, upheld the Bombay High Court's order which noted "fraud" and suppression of material facts in the case.

Finding that the matter presented a precarious situation, the bench said, "Here is a case where the appellant, a meritorious student otherwise, has completed her MBBS course and is now pursuing her PG Course. If we dismiss this appeal, that will be the end of her entire career."

The court noted the facts of the case quite gross yet it decided to grant one opportunity to the appellant, Chaitanya, keeping only one thing in mind, i.e., her career and her life.

"Having regard to the fact that the father has filed an undertaking that his daughter will never seek any benefit on the ground that she belongs to Scheduled Tribe and the father has also given an undertaking that no one in the family would seek any benefit of being members of the Scheduled Tribe, we regularise her admission in the MBBS Course,'' the bench said.

The court, however, said one thought still haunted its mind, and i.e., that one eligible meritorious candidate from the Scheduled Tribe category lost the opportunity to pursue the MBBS course.

"For this, the father of the appellant must compensate in terms of money,'' the bench said.

The court directed him to deposit an amount of Rs 5 lakh with the National Defence Fund within a period of two months.

It also felt, "Had the Committee undertaken the necessary verification expeditiously and would have declared that the appellant does not fall within the Scheduled Tribe then probably nothing further would have occurred in the matter."

While partly allowing the appeal, the court directed the appellant would not claim the status of “Mannervarlu” Scheduled Tribe ever in future.

On her writ petition, the High Court said the Scheduled Tribe claim by the father and uncle of the appellant was invalidated in 1989 and affirmed by the appellate authority in 1991 but this fact was suppressed while obtaining a validity certificate for the appellant from a different committee.

"The facts of this case are quite gross but we need to balance the equities in the wake of a few mitigating circumstances which have come on record,'' the bench said in an order on August 25, 2025.

Maintaining that it was conscious of the fact that equity should follow the law, the bench said, however, in the peculiar facts and circumstances of this case, "we thought it fit to grant one opportunity to the appellant."

The court held Sanjiv Vithalrao Palekar, the father of the appellant more responsible for creating this imbroglio.

The suppression of material facts, at the end of the father, ultimately put his own daughter in difficulty, the bench said.

The petitioner's father, however, filed an undertaking giving up his claim as belonging to Mannevarlu, Scheduled Tribe.