The Delhi High Court Friday directed the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to allot a seat in a masters course to an MBBS doctor who denied this last year due to a change in the prospectus just before the counselling date.
Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Sanjeev Khanna said: ‘The AIIMS authorities will have to allot a seat to Varun Aggarwal in PG course in the general category either in surgery, gynaecology or orthopaedics in the next academic session in July 2011.’
The court was hearing the petition filed by Aggarwal, who had alleged that the AIIMS authorities had failed to follow the existing procedure and changed the prospectus just ahead of the counselling date in June 2010. On that ground he was not allowed to get admission in MS (surgery) despite holding 179th rank in the merit list.
The court said: ‘The AIIMS may have been conferred with the privilege of institutional preference, but that would not enable it to change the prospectus in the manner it has been done. Thus, the action of the AIIMS on this score is vitiated and we cannot give a stamp of approval to the action of the institution.’
‘The hopes and aspirations of the students, who came within the zone of merit, cannot be scuttled by changing the prospectus by way of introducing a corrigendum. By issuing a corrigendum, the scenario of results changed because further results were published and more candidates were called,’ the court observed.
‘The conditions stipulated in the prospectus are guidelines for all concerned and everyone is required to follow the same in letter and spirit and not act in transgression,’ the court added.
