Delhi High Court
Danish Habib Khan vs Union Of India & Ors on 29 July, 2013
Author: V. K. Jain
* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
% Date of Decision: 29.07.2013
+ W.P.(C) 4741/2013 & CM 10821/2013
DANISH HABIB KHAN ..... Petitioner
Through: Mr. Rana Ranjit Singh, Mr. Jaswant Singh
and Mr. Vivek Kumar Singh, Advs.
versus
UNION OF INDIA & ORS ..... Respondents
Through: Mr. Archana Gaur, Adv. for R-1/UOI.
Mr. Amitesh Kumar and Ms. Mamta Tiwari,
Advs. for UGC.
Ms. Ekta K. Sikri and Mr. Sudeep Dey, Adv.
for R-2.
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE V.K.JAIN
JUDGMENT
V.K.JAIN, J. (ORAL)
The petitioner before this Court appeared in the National Eligibility Entrance
Test (NEET), 2013, conducted for admission to MBBS Course. The petitioner
claims to have secured 95.956 percentile in the said test. He applied for admission
to respondent-Jamia Hamdard University in terms of the information bulletin and
prospectus for the year 2013-2014. The result of NEET was published on the
website on 5.6.2013 and the petitioner received an SMS Alert from the respondent-
Jamia Hamdard University on 7.6.2013 reminding him update his NEET scores and
All India rank in Jamia admission, so as to complete the application and avoid
rejection. Accordingly, the petitioner up-dated his percentile in NEET, 2013 on the
website of the university on 7.6.2013. The respondent-university uploaded on
21.6.2013, the notice containing dates for counselling as also cut-off percentile
scores and NEET, 2013 of All India rank of the candidates who had applied for
admissions to MBBS Course of the said university. The counselling was conducted
from 21.6.2013 to 29.6.2013. Since the petitioner did not appear in the said
counselling, he could not get admission to MBBS Course of Jamia Hamdard
University. The case of the petitioner is that he was under an impression that he
would get alert message from the university, conveying the dates of counselling to
him, but no such alert was received by him. According to him, he was suffering
from viral fever and lock knee from 20.6.2013 to 4.7.2013. He claims to have
downloaded the notice containing counselling dates from the website of the
university after 6.7.2013 and is now before the Court by way of this writ petition.
2. Clause 6 and 8 of the Information Bulletin and Prospectus for the Academic
Year 2013-2014 read as under:
"6. All the intimation regarding admission in MBBS
course shall be displayed on the University website of
Jamia Hamdard http://www.jamiahardar.edu and no
separate intimation shall be given to individual candidate.
The candidates seeking admission are required to see the
website of Jamia Hamdard regularly. The University shall
not be responsible if a candidate fails to get/ access
information regarding his/her selection/ admission
process for any reason whatsoever.
7. xxx
8. The University takes no responsibility for any
delay in email transmission through website of
intimation/ selection List etc or any other communication
related to admission as per regulations.
3. It is thus evident that the university undertake no responsibility to send any
individual intimation or alert to any applicant with respect to the dates of
counselling. The university was required to display all the intimation regarding
admission to MBBS Course on its website and had specifically stated in the
information bulletin and prospectus that no individual intimation shall be given to
the individual candidates. Admittedly, the requisite intimation was available on the
website of the university. Since the candidates were advised, by way of prospectus
to see the website of the university regularly and were also told that the university
would not be responsible if a candidate fails to get access/ information with respect
to his/ her selection/ admission process, the petitioner had no valid justification to
assume that he would get SMS alert or any other intimation from the university,
conveying the dates of counselling as well as cut-off list and ranks to the
candidates who were called for the counselling. Merely because an SMS alert was
sent to all the applicants requiring them to feed their NEET percentile on the
website gave no justification to the applicants to assume that they would be getting
the same alert with respect to the dates of counselling. This is more so when the
university had made it specifically clear to the students that no individual
intimation shall be sent to them and they were required to see the website of the
university on a regular basis.
4. The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner had no
access to internet since he is residing in Loni which has no cyber cafe and the
petitioner does not have the facility of internet available to him. Such averments
cannot be verified in a writ petition. In any case, the reasons given by the petitioner
for not being able to access the website of the university are hardly relevant. If the
petitioner did not have internet facilities and there is no cyber cafe in the locality
where he is residing, it was imperative for him or for a member of his family to
access the website of the university on a regular basis, to ensure that he does not
miss the dates of counselling. It would be important in this regard to note that
though the counselling commenced on 21.6.2013, considering the percentile
obtained by the petitioner, he had enough time at his disposal to access the website
and then attend the counselling on the dates fixed for the applicants in reserved
category who had obtained percentile between 97.1660 to 95.6553.
5. The learned counsel for the petitioner states that since he was down with
fever, he could not access the website during the aforesaid period. This, to my
mind, can hardly be a valid ground considering that any member of the colony,
including the father of the petitioner who is present in the Court and stated to be a
doctor, could have accessed the website of the university even if the petitioner was
sick during the aforesaid period.
6. The Court has to keep in mind that in a system of admission through the
process of counseling, if the candidate with higher rank is not present at the time of
counseling, next applicant in merit gets the seat, which the absent candidate could
have got. On his getting admission, a vested right accrues in favour of such a
student, and the admission once given to him cannot be withdrawn at the behest of
the absent candidate.
For the reasons stated hereinabove, I find no merit in this petition and the
same is hereby dismissed. There shall be no orders as to costs.
V.K. JAIN, J
JULY 29, 2013
rd
