State Of Punjab & Anr. Etc vs Viney Kumar Khullar & Ors. Etc

2. The Government of Punjab issued a prospectus notification dated 17.3.2008 (for short the `Prospectus') regarding admission to post graduate degree/diploma in Medical/ Dental Courses for the year 2008. Clause 14 relates to allocation of seats and relevant portions thereof are extracted below :

5HB2/9990 dated 13/5/96 and any other instruction issued by Punjab Government.

(ii) Any candidate in State Government employment shall produce a `No Objection Certificate' from his/her employer."

3. The Government Circular Memo dated 13.5.1996 referred to in clause 14(xi) of the Prospectus contains the policy regarding issue of `No Objection Certificate' (`NOC' for short). The relevant portions thereof are extracted below :

4. The first respondent in each of these appeals is an in-service PDES doctor. They applied for admission to the 2008-2011 post graduate courses. They obtained and produced provisional No Objection Certificates, along with their applications. The results of Entrance Examination 2008 were declared on 27.4.2008 and in the ensuing counselling at the Baba Farid University on 12th and 21st May, 2008, they were selected and admitted to different Post Graduate Courses in General Category in the 60% quota for in-service candidates. Dr. V.K. Khullar was selected for MD (Social and Preventive Medicine), Dr. G.S. Dhaliwal was selected for MD (Skin & V.D.) and Dr. Kamal Kishore for MD (Anesthesiology). When they sought No Objection Certificates which had to be produced, the department found that all of them were due to retire within 5 to 12 years and could not render the required minimum compulsory service for ten years after completing the three year Post Graduate Course. Therefore, the No Objection Certificates were not issued.

8. The question for consideration is whether the High Court could have disposed of the writ petitions by virtual non-speaking orders, without considering the various issues, only with a direction to verify the provisional NOCs within two weeks and permitting the writ petitioners to continue with their studies. We find that the orders of the High Court are unsatisfactory as they do not specify what should happen if on verification of the provisional NOCs, it was found that they are not valid. We also find that the direction to appellants to permit the three writ petitioners to continue their studies was unconditional and was not restricted to the period required for verification of the provisional NOCs. Normally, we would have set aside the said orders of the High Court and remanded the matters with a direction to the High Court to consider the contentions raised and pass appropriate orders. But having regard to the fact that the three writ petitioners (first respondent in each of the three appeals) have already completed 2 years and 3 months out of the 3 year MD course, any remand would result in further delay, thereby adversely affecting their interests and also deny the benefit of their specialised service to the society. Therefore, we propose to dispose of the matters without remand.

10. In these peculiar circumstances we are of the view that the admissions of Dr. Kamal Kishore and Dr. Gurjeet Dhaliwal should not be interfered and they should be permitted to continue the course subject to giving a bond undertaking to serve for a period of five years after completion of the course, and in default pay Rs.200,000/-, in terms of the circular dated 13.5.1996 without reference to the amendment dated 30.7.2007. We hasten to add that this would be the position in respect of the 2008 PG admissions.

12. In view of the above these appeals are allowed in part as follows :