Civil Writ Petition No.11087 of 2010 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.11087 of 2010 DATE OF DECISION: August 10, 2010 Dr. Abhishek Kumar Gupta and others .....Petitioners VERSUS Union of India and another ....Respondents CORAM:- HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgement? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? Present: Mr. Ashok Aggarwal, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. Rahul Sharma, Advocate, for the respondents. ***** RANJIT SINGH, J. Mohan Dai Oswal Caner Treatment and Research Foundation (petitioner No. 6) alongwith five students (petitioners No. 1 to 5) have filed this writ petition for issuance of writ in the nature of certiorari/mandamus for quashing the decision of the National Board of Examination (respondent No. 2) in declining to register the application of petitioners No. 1 to 5 admitted by petitioner No. 6. The petitioners would also pray for the directions to register petitioner No. Civil Writ Petition No.11087 of 2010 2 1 for DNB course in Radiotherapy and petitioners No. 2 to 5 for Anesthesia. Petitioner No. 6/institution was accredited in the year 1991 in specialties of Radio diagnosis and Radiotherapy. In 1999, accreditation was granted for Orthopedics, Surgery. Nine other specialties were added to the institution in the year 2005 and these were Radio diagnosis, Radiotherapy, Orthopedics, Surgery, Anesthesia, Medicine, Gynae, Family Medicine and Surgical Oncology. On 09.01.2007, petitioner/institution applied for renewal of accreditation in the field of Gynaecology. Demand draft of Rs. 40,000/- was enclosed which was encashed. The inspection was done on 09.01.2008. The report of the Committee was considered on 14.07.2008 and the petitioner/institution was permitted to admit the students. In case of 5 other specialties, namely Medicine, Orthopedics, Family Medicine, General Surgery and Radiodiagnosis, the letter of accreditation was awaited though the petitioner/institution claims that all these formalities were complete. In this background, on 10.01.2009, the petitioner/institution sought permission to take candidate in specialties like Medicine, Gyane and Orthopedics. A letter was initiated on 16.01.2009 asking for response to the permission sought. On 04.02.2009, respondent No. 2/Board wrote a letter intimating that the complaint against the petitioner/institution was under investigation by Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and the final clearance was awaited. Petitioner No. 6 was, accordingly, told not to enroll the candidates in any specialty till further orders, though even the respondent-Board had earlier granted accreditation to the Civil Writ Petition No.11087 of 2010 3 petitioner/institution in specialties like Radiotherapy, Surgery oncology and Anesthesia on 08.02.2008. Unaware of the correspondence between the petitioner/ institution and the respondent-Board, the student/petitioners No. 1 to 5 applied for admission to specialties like Radiotherapy and Anesthesia. Petitioner No. 6, apparently admitted the petitioners/ students without apprising them about the situation then prevailing. When the application for registration of the petitioners/students was forwarded to respondent No. 2-Board, the same was returned in original with direction that no candidate was to be admitted till further orders. Faced with this situation, the petitioners appear to have obtained information in regard to pending inquiry by CVC and have approached this Court for directions as noted above. In response to notice, reply has been filed by respondent No. 2-Board. The stand is that the Board had already informed the institution not to admit any candidate in any specialty till further orders. It is stated that despite this, the petitioner/institution has admitted petitioners No. 1 to 5 illegally and in violation of the express an unambiguous instructions. It is thus pleaded that the petitioner/institution was debarred from enrolling/admitting any fresh candidates and thus had misrepresented the candidates while admitting them. Accordingly, it is pleaded that no case for issuing direction as prayed for is made out. I have considered the submissions made before me and have heard the learned counsel for the parties. At the outset, I would wish to express my disapproval on the conduct of the petitioner/institution in admitting the students despite the specific Civil Writ Petition No.11087 of 2010 4 direction issued by the Board to the institution to not to admit the students. There was no ambiguity in the manner and tenor of directions issued by the Board. The petitioner-institution is wholly unjustified and has misled the students/petitioners No. 1 to 5 while admitting them in the respective specialties. How could petitioner No. 6 act in this careless and casual manner appears beyond comprehension. Any consideration in this background would only amount to adding premium to act of defiance. But for the concern for career of innocent students, no case of interference is made out and the case is being considered from this angle alone. A deeper analysis of the situation would reveal that the reasons which had weighed with the Board to ask the institution not to admit the students was the pending inquiry by CVC. Accordingly, counsel appearing for the Board was asked to explain the details in regard to the nature of the inquiry which is pending against this institution, which could have weighed with the Court while considering the grant of writ sought in the present case. Though there is no specific pleadings in this regard but apparently it seems that the reason which has weighed with the Board in issuing such instructions to the institution was some under hand dealing with erstwhile President of the Board and the petitioner/institution. The allegations as are appearing to be under investigation have been vaguely referred to in this manner. Mr. Ashok Aggarwal, counsel for the petitioners is justified in making reference to answer given in response to their query under the RTI, which gives an indication that there is no investigation is pending with the CVC. Even if, there is some matter under Civil Writ Petition No.11087 of 2010 5 investigation for admitting the students to the Post-graduation courses, the communication was only that the petitioner/institution should not admit the students till further orders. Even now, no order could be brought to my notice whereby any bar was imposed on the petitioner-institution not to admit the students permanently by withdrawing the accreditation or by denying the same. In order to satisfy myself to see if allegation was made out, I had gone through the observation made by the Inspection Committee report annexed with the reply. Since the issue raised in the present writ petition related to two specialties like Anesthesia and Radiotherapy, I have minutely gone through the said observations. These have been highlighted by the counsel for respondent-Board. Except for observing that the Department does not seem to cover some specialties i.e. Neurosurgery, Plastic surgery, CTVC and Urology, no other defect is pointed out with the petitioner-institution for which accreditation sought could be denied. It has been submitted before me that Neuro surgery and plastic surgery are specialized forms of surgery, which are not available in routine in various institutions and there is no special training needed for Anesthesia in such like surgeries, which could be a valid reason to discontinue the accreditation which was earlier granted to the petitioner-institution. The counsel for the petitioner has also drawn my attention to the final recommendation made by the Committee while carrying out the inspection. He would highlight that as per the recommendation, accreditation granted for running DNB course in surgery oncology was to be withdrawn immediately due to lack of qualified faculties whereas no such recommendation was made as Civil Writ Petition No.11087 of 2010 6 far as Anesthesia and Radiotherapy was concerned. Considering the totality of the circumstances and the pleadings made before me and keeping in view the career of the students, who were admitted though unwarrantedly by the institution, I deem it appropriate to direct the respondent-Board to grant accreditation and registration to petitioners No. 1 to 5 for the courses of Anesthesia and Radiotherapy respectively. This, however, would not permit the petitioner-institution to admit any other students for any other courses till matter is cleared by the respondent-Board either on conclusion of the inquiry or otherwise. Further admission to all the specialties will be regulated only after the grant of permission by the Board and not otherwise. The present writ petition is, accordingly, allowed. August 10,2010 ( RANJIT SINGH ) rts JUDGE