Supreme Court: In the case where the a Dental College, upon failing to receive permission to start post-graduate course of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopaedics along with four other specialties, had knocked the door of the High Court of Bombay and the High Court had passed an interim order stating that the admission process undertaken by the Institution is at the risk of the Institution and that the Institution shall intimate the order passed by this Court to the students who are intending to take admission for the Post-Graduate course, the Court said that High Court should not pass such interim orders in the matters of admission, more so, when the institution had not been accorded approval, as it brings in anarchy and chaos in the process of admission.
Considering it necessary to interfere with the order of the High Court, the bench of Dipak Misra and M.M. Shantanagoudar, JJ said that the High Court may feel that while exercising power under Article 226 of the Constitution, it can pass such orders with certain qualifiers as has been done by the impugned order, but it really does not save the situation. The institution might be directed to inform the students that the matter is sub judice, but the career oriented students get into the college with the hope and aspiration that in the ultimate eventuate everything shall be correct for them and they will be saved. It is a situation where the order has the potentiality to play with the career and life of young.
Taking note of the fact that by virtue of the said interim order, 3 students had been admitted and they are prosecuting their studies, the Court directed that those students shall be allowed to continue their courses, but their seats shall be adjusted from the academic session 2017-2018. Stating that the respondent-college cannot be allowed to get a premium, the Court, apart from the adjustment of seats for the next academic session, directed the respondent-college to deposit a sum of Rs. 30 Lakhs before the Registry of this Court within 8 weeks. The Court clarified that the said cost shall in no manner be recovered from the students who had been admitted nor shall it be collected from the students who will be admitted to the course in the next year.
The Court will take up the matter in the third week of July to ensure the compliance of the directions of the Court and to determine how to deal with the sum deposited by the respondent-college. [Dental Council of India v. Dr. Hedgewar Smruti Rugna Seva Mandal, Hingoli, 2017 SCC OnLine SC 376, decided on 11.04.2017]
