Changing admission norms mid-process violates fairness: SC on Punjab MBBS, BDS sports quota

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday criticised the Punjab government for following what it described as an “elastic” approach to admissions under the sports quota for MBBS and BDS courses for the 2024 academic session, observing that admission criteria cannot be changed once the process has commenced.

A bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and Alok Aradhe said just as a modification of recruitment norms is forbidden in law after the recruitment process has begun, it is equally illegal for an admission process not to be fully defined in all its contours before its commencement, so as to leave room for the authorities concerned to stipulate norms later on to suit their own interests or permit nepotism.

The transparency of such a process is paramount to ensure fairness and prevent arbitrariness, it said.

"The practice and procedure followed by the state of Punjab in leaving the norms elastic, without disclosing as to what would be the exact policy with regard to the zone of consideration, and allowing itself sufficient leeway and elbow room to change such policy midstream during the admission process is not in accordance with the principles of fair play in action,” the bench said.

"Lack of transparency at the outset invariably enables and makes room for arbitrariness and nepotism to walk in through the backdoor, a situation to be eschewed and avoided by an egalitarian State," the bench added.

The top court was hearing appeals filed by Divjot Sekhon and Shubhkarman Singh against the admission criteria adopted by the Punjab government for admission in the MBBS and BDS courses under the sports quota in session-2024.

The court said the State and its instrumentalities have a duty and responsibility to act fairly and reasonably in terms of the mandate of Article 14 of the Constitution and that any decision taken by the State must be reasoned and not arbitrary.

"When a thing is done in a post-haste manner, malafides would be presumed as anything done with undue haste can be termed arbitrary and would not be condonable in law. The aforestated principle would apply with equal vigour to an admission process relating to sought-after courses like MBBS and BDS," it said.

The court directed that Sekhon and Singh be accommodated in the seats in the government medical college.

"Though the state of Punjab would seek to rely upon case law in support of its argument that the court would, ordinarily, not interfere in policy matters, it is equally well settled that when a policy decision is riddled with arbitrariness or even provides avenues therefor, the court would be justified in nullifying it. The fact that a policymaker is to be allowed some elbow room in formulating policy does not translate to allowing scope for arbitrariness or nepotism. We, therefore, find no merit in the contentions of the state of Punjab," the bench said.

PTI