Illegal allotment of seat: High Court imposes Rs 1 lakh cost on Karnataka Examinations Authority

A division bench directed the KEA to allot MD in Respiratory in Medicine seat to the petitioner Dr Rajesh Kumar D and issue necessary orders within two weeks.

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has imposed a cost of Rs 1 lakh upon the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA), after observing that allotment of MD in Respiratory Medicine seat in favour of a candidate was wholly illegal.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice PS Dinesh Kumar and Justice TG Shivashankare Gowda directed the KEA to allot MD in Respiratory in Medicine seat to the petitioner Dr Rajesh Kumar D and issue necessary orders within two weeks.

The petitioner, an in-service doctor working as Assistant Surgeon in Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research, had appeared for NEET-PG 2021 held on September 11, 2021. The petitioner claimed a seat under in-service category SC quota working in an Autonomous Institution. He was allotted a MD seat in Respiratory Medicine at Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases in the first round of counselling held on February 2, 2022. He also got admitted in the said course.

It was stated that KEA had sent the copy of a February 25, 2022 letter by the Director of Medical Education (DME) calling upon the Executive Director, KEA, to cancel the petitioner’s seat. In the second round of counseling, the seat was allotted to one G Pradeep Naik.

The petitioner contended that the principles of natural justice have been given a go by while cancelling the seat allotted to him. On the other hand, the KEA claimed that the NOC produced by the petitioner was for DNB course and he was required to submit the NOC for MD course.

The bench noted that the verification of the genuineness and correctness of the documents must be completed at the verification stage itself. “Once the Verifying Officer has acknowledged that NOC has been submitted and testified the verification slip, it is presumed that all documents submitted were in order. If the NOC was for DNB Course and not for the MD Course, the KEA ought to have rejected petitioner's candidature at that stage itself,” the bench said.

The court further said, “Secondly, even if it is assumed that the NOC was found defective at a later stage, as rightly contended by the advocate for the petitioner, the KEA ought to have obtained a clarification from Jayadeva Institute. Thirdly, petitioner's seat has been canceled without issuing notice to him.”