Mumbai: In a major relief to a medical aspirant, the Bombay High Court on Thursday ordered the authorities in the Union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli to admit her in the medical course for the coming academic year.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish Kulkarni declared "arbitrary" a clause of the territory's laws for granting admissions, which mandated the candidate to have studied class VIII from within the territory alone.
The student, who had petitioned the bench led by the chief justice, challenged to this condition since she had studied class VIII from Gujarat.
Having considered the facts of the case, the bench noted that the same condition, to which the student had taken exception to, also mandated a candidate to have studied classes X and XII from the territory.
"In our opinion, considered from any angle, there does not appear to be any justifiable reason or reasonable rationale to include such a condition, which is to be regarded as an inflexible and a rigid standard to be maintained as a condition to fall in the First Priority list," the bench held.
The judges further said that the academic requirements in no manner would stand diluted when the student has studied the VIII class within the same Board.
"The Court cannot shut its eyes that in the present situation as asserted by the petitioner, merit is a casualty. She is a more meritorious student than the others who are falling in the first preference category," the judges noted.
The judges accordingly held the said condition to be illegal and bad in law.
