HC upholds defence quota

MUMBAI, August 20: The Bombay High Court recently upheld student Pooja Dutta's claim to admission in the medical faculty under the reserv...

MUMBAI, August 20: The Bombay High Court recently upheld student Pooja Dutta’s claim to admission in the medical faculty under the reserved quota for children of defence personnel.

The division bench of Justice Ashok Agarwal and Justice S S Nijjar ordered certain relaxation of rules to consider Dutta’s claim. The court ruled that Dutta is eligible to apply from the category of children of defence personnel’ in the Pune region. The competent authority dealing with medical college admissions in Maharashtra had not accepted Dutta’s application on the ground that she had not passed her matriculation from the state. The authority was directed to accept the form and place her in the merit list of this category.

Pooja Dutta passed her HSC exam from Maharashtra securing 273 out of 300 marks in the Physics, Chemistry and Biology group. She applied for the medical course for this academic year. Being the daughter of an ex-defence personnel, she applied for admission in the quota reserved for children of defencepersonnel. Her father had served the Indian Army for 10 years from 1977.

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The authorities disqualified her admission form on two grounds. First, that she had not passed the SSC examination from Maharashtra; second, her application form did not specify the category in which she was claiming admission. The court ruled that the first rule can be relaxed in Dutta’s case because her father, being a central government employee, had been transferred to Noida on deputation. Therefore, she passed her SSC from Noida. Later, when he was retransferred to Maharashtra (Currency Note Press, Nasik), she passed her HSC in Maharashtra.

With regard to the second objection, the petitioner claimed that she was forced not to mark herself as “children of the armed forces” as she was told that her form would not be accepted. Therefore, she scrapped the mark made against that category. The court ruled that since Dutta’s father had put in the required five years of active service in the Indian Army, she was eligible to thecollege seat.