Karnataka High Court: The Division Bench of L. Narayana Swamy and R. Devdas, JJ. while disposing of the petition directed the respondents to consider the representation of the petitioner as expeditiously as possible.
In the instant case, the petitioner qualified NEET-UG 2019 conducted by the National Testing Agency thereby eligible to take admission in Medical/Dental Colleges. He submitted an online application for UG NEET 2019 conducted by Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) but did not claim the status of the ward of ‘NRI’ and entered ‘No’ in the column since he did not have the required document and he was not even aware of the procedure claiming the aforesaid status. He was under a bonafide expression that such things need to be furnished at a later stage.
Thereafter, during document verification, the petitioner was told that he cannot be considered as a candidate under the said category as he did not apply for it at the initial stage. Even after submitting the documents, the respondent-KEA did not consider his name under the said category.
Counsel for the petitioner, Ajay Kumar Patil submitted that since the petitioner has the documents now (after document verification and counseling is over), the same should be considered for the second round of counseling.
Counsel for the respondent-KEA, N.K. Ramesh submitted that once the application is filled it cannot be changed at a later stage.
The Court after analyzing the arguments of the Parties observed that it is the case of the Petitioner that, by inadvertence, the petitioner mentioned ‘No’ against the column meant for ‘NRI Quota/Category’.
It was submitted by the Counsel for the petitioner that in a similar case of Ananya B. Reddy and Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA), WP No. 13526 of 2018, directions were issued to the respondent-authority to consider the request of the petitioner in accordance with law by taking note of the Documents made available.
Thus, the Court directed the Respondent-KEA to afford an opportunity to the petitioner in the next round of counseling under the category ‘NRI’.[Gaddipati Dharma Teja v. Karnataka Examinations Authority, 2019 SCC OnLine Kar 1224, decided on 25-07-2019]
