HC junks Plea Against AIIMS Jodhpur Challenging Security Deposit Demand for leaving seat midway
Rajasthan High Court
Jodhpur: Clarifying that the terms of the PG admission prospectus would apply in the case of spot counselling also, the Rajasthan High Court recently dismissed a plea against All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Jodhpur challenging the demand of a Rs 5 lakh deposit from the petitioner.
The plea was filed by the petitioner, who had been admitted to the college under spot counselling. However, he vacated the seat in the middle of the semester.
While the petitioner challenged the demand of deposit amount, the HC bench comprising Justices Vineet Kumar Mathur observed that the condition of depositing the amount in the case of vacating the seat in the middle of the semester was mentioned in the prospectus issued in 2023 and since the process of spot counselling is a part of process of filling the vacant seats in the PG programme in 2023, the absence of the condition in the notification for spot counselling would not make any difference.
After appearing in the PG entrance examination, the petitioner was granted admission to AIIMS Jodhpur by participating in the spot counselling. For this, he had submitted his original documents. However, he did not submit the demand draft of Rs 5 lakh. Even though the petitioner joined the course in 2023, he later dropped out and requested the college to return his original documents.
However, the college rejected the petitioner's request citing the non submission of any deposit amount. Challenging this, the petitioner filed a plea before the High Court.
As per the latest media report by Live Law, earlier, complying with the directions issued by the court in an interim order, the petitioner had deposited Rs 2.5 lakh and consequently received his original documents. Thereafter, he prayed before the Court to restrain AIIMS from demanding the remaining amount i.e. Rs 2.5 lakh.
The petitioner argued that the notification issued for spot counselling, based on which they had participated in the spot counselling, did not mention any such condition of submission of demand draft. In this regard, the petitioner's counsel argued that the condition mentioned in the prospectus was not applicable in the notification for spot counselling, which was an entirely different process.
Further, the petitioner's counsel submitted that after issuing the notification for spot counselling, the authorities subsequently issued a notification which included a condition specifying that if a student withdrew from the seat after accepting the same, he would be fined. In this regard, the petitioner's counsel argued that the inclusion of this condition later showed that no such condition was applicable when the petitioner appeared for spot counseling.
On the other hand, the counsel for the institute argued that spot counselling was a part of the process conducted to admit students to PG courses after issuing the prospectus which involved a detailed procedure and therefore, there was no requirement to issue such detailed separate guidelines for spot counselling.
Apart from this, the counsel also highlighted that the seat vacated by the petitioner in the middle of the semester would remain vacant throughout the session and the institute would have to bear the burden of non-joining of the course by the petitioner.
After considering the arguments by both the parties, the HC bench agreed with the college's counsel and clarified that the prospectus contained a condition for a deposit in case a student vacared the course during counselling to compensate for the loss incurred by the institute.
Therefore, the Court concluded that the petitioner should have been aware of the same as the prospectus was applicable for admission to PG courses despite the same not being mentioned in the notification for spot counselling as spot counseling was a continuous process to fill up the PG medical seats for 2023.
Accordingly, the Court observed, "This Court is of the view that the spot counselling conducted by AIIMS, Jodhpur is an extension of the process initiated by it for filling up the vacant seats in the postgraduate course in the year 2023. In these circumstances, the petitioner was under an obligation to deposit a demand draft of Rs.5,00,000/- (Rupees five lakhs) as per the condition of the prospectus discussed above."
Further, it was also noted by the Court that the subsequent notification issued by the authorities was only to clarify the condition mentioned in the prospectus and it would not mean that the condition was not applicable at the time of spot counselling. Further, the court also noted that the seat vacated by the petitioner would remain vacant for the entire session, resulting in a loss for AIIMS.
With these observations, the Court dismissed the plea and directed the petitioner to deposit the remaining amount.
