The Supreme Court today ruled that private medical colleges are not compulsorily required to provide a quota for Non-Resident Indians (NRIs).
The judgment rendered by a Bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and S Ravindra Bhat states that private medical institutions offering professional and technical courses are well within their powers to decide whether or not NRI or management quota may be culled out, and to what extent the same can be done, within the permissible ceiling.
"...it is evident that the NRI quota is neither sacrosanct, not inviolable in terms of existence in any given year, or its extent," the Court held.
The Court further held that should a decision be taken by the concerned authority to do away with such a quota, a reasonable notice to this effect must be given so that aspirants can accordingly apply for other seats.
The verdict was passed in a petition filed against the decision of a Division Bench of the Rajasthan High Court which had held that private medical colleges and institutes are not mandated to provide for an NRI quota. The High Court had that should the colleges avail the same, it must be within the limit of 15 per cent of the total seats as per the judgment of a seven-judge Bench of the Supreme Court in the case of PA Inamdar.
The Division Bench had reversed the ruling passed by the Single Judge of the High Court which had ruled that NRI candidates cannot be denied admission under the quota. The petitioners subsequently moved the Supreme Court against the Division Bench's decision.
The Apex Court, however, agreed with the Division Bench's findings. While referring to the decision in PA Inamdar, it held,
"A plain reading of the judgement of this court in Inamdar reveals that a provision for 15% NRI quota was not compulsory; it was only potential... Clearly, this court had the benefit of past experience with the concept of NRI quota: witness its skepticism about filling of such seats (in the past) by undeserving and unmerited candidates, to the detriment of more meritorious students. Therefore, the court indicated a limited quota with some essential controls in the manner of filling up of such NRI quota seats."
The Court summarised in its judgment the "crucial elements" as regards filling up of the NRI quota seats that were stipulated in the PA Inamdar verdict. These are:
"...one, the discretion of the management (whether to have the quota or not); two, the limit (15%); three, that seats should be available for genuine and bona fide NRI students, and lastly that the quota was to be filled based on merit."
In the instant case, the Chairman of the NEET PG Counselling Board had issued a notice to scrap the NRI quota for admissions, clarifying that the aspirants who had applied under the quota would be considered for admission based on other eligibility criteria. When this notice was challenged by some candidates before the High Court, the Single Judge had directed for those candidates to be given admission.
The Division Bench, while reversing this ruling, also said that the Single Judge could not have passed a direction for granting admission to the candidates before the Court. The Apex Court agreed with the Division Bench and made the position in law on the scope of "positive directions" clear. It held,
"There is a body of case law which clarifies that sans a statutory duty, a positive direction to do something in a specific manner, cannot be given (“it must be shown that there is a statute which imposes a legal duty and the aggrieved party has a legal right under the statute to enforce its performance.”). The NRI candidates could not assert a right to be admitted; furthermore, while granting relief, the single judge could at best have directed consideration of the cases of the writ petitioners before him."
Having said so, the Court also underscored the peculiar circumstances in this case owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and the last minute policy change on the issue of NRI quota.
The order of the Single Judge, the Apex Court noted, "opened a Pandora's box" and led to a large number of fresh claims being filed by candidates, eventually leading to a second round of counselling being conducted especially for NRI quota candidates. Therefore, in order to do complete justice, the Supreme Court said,
"In the circumstances of this case and to do justice to all the parties, this court is of the opinion that a special counselling session should be carried out by the board, confined or restricted to the seats in respect of which admissions were made pursuant to the single judge’s directions."
Senior Counsel V Giri represented the appellants before the Court while Senior Advocates Siddharth Dave and Wasim Qadri as well as Advocates Anand Verma and DK Garg represented other candidates.
Additional Advocate General Manish Singhvi argued for the State of Rajasthan, while Senior Advocate Nakul Dewan argued for an intervenor. His arguments found support in the submissions made by Advocate Shiv Mangal Sharma, who appeared for one of the respondents
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