HC refuses to condone failure to submit online application

When the plea moved by Dr Shifa Khairun in this regard came up for hearing, Justice N Anand Venkatesh noted that the petitioner was a qualified doctor who is aged about 25 years and is therefore expected to act with alacrity while submitting applications online.

The selection committee, Directorate of Medical Education, has already prepared the list of candidates who are to participate in the counselling, the judge said and added: “If the petitioner is allowed to participate at this stage under the BCM category, it will amount to giving premium for the mistake committed by the petitioner.”

To accommodate the petitioner at this stage, the committee would have to redo the list completely. “It will not be fair to put the selection committee to hardship for the mistake committed by the petitioner. Moreover, permitting the petitioner to participate in the counselling even without submitting an application will open flood gates,” Justice Anand Venkatesh said, noting that the petitioner must be made to realise her mistakes so that she did not commit them in future. The petitioner’s NEET score was nowhere near the cut off marks under the general category or OBC category under the central quota. But after the cut-off was reduced during the mop-up round, she realised that she stood a chance if she had applied under the OBC quota instead of the general category.

Following this, she approached the court and was allowed to participate as an OBC candidate in the mop-up round counselling. But she failed to a seat in the central quota. Thereafter, finding that she could get admission under the State quota but had failed to submit the online application before the due date (July 18), she moved the court again by trying to take refuge under an earlier order. However, the judge noted that the petitioner seems to have a pattern to commit one mistake after another, and every time she expected the court to condone it and allow her to participate in the selection.

He then dismissed the plea, holding that the court was not inclined to permit the petitioner to participate in the counselling under the State quota without even submitting the online application.