The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : 'Improvement candidates can compete with freshers'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 03, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

'Improvement candidates can compete with freshers'

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, AUG. 2. The Madras High Court today declined to interfere with the improvement examination system for Plus-Two students, but said weightage for seniority in age should be given separately among freshers and improvement candidates.

Passing orders on a batch of writ petitions challenging equal treatment of the regular and improvement students for admission to professional courses, the First Bench, comprising the Chief Justice B. Subhashan Reddy and Justice Prabha Sridevan, said: ``If all things are equal, then seniority in age will count either among the improvement candidates or among freshers only. It will not be between a fresher and an improvement candidate.''

The Bench, ruling that improvement candidates could not claim the advantage of seniority in age, said it violated the clause of equal protection of law.

However, though the Bench ruled that clause (iv) of Clause (c) of Paragraph 7 of the prospectus issued by the Department of Medical Education be interpreted to mean that the seniority factor would come into play only in case of a tie between two freshers or two improvement candidates, it added: ``When a Governmental scheme permits an improvement examination, freshers cannot have any grievance. More so, when they did not challenge the improvement scheme before taking up their examination.'' As for the freshers' suggestion for creation of a quota for improvement students, the Bench reasoned that since the number of medical seats had to be specified and sanctioned by the Medical Council of India, separate seats could not be carved out for improvement candidates.

Risk factor

The judges said they saw force in the contention of the improvement candidates that the scheme was available only for those who were ready to ``spend time, money and labour'' to prepare for the examination. Further, the moment such a student takes up the examination, he ipso facto surrenders the marks obtained in the previous examination.

Pointing to all these ``risks,'' the judges said: ``We hold that so long as the improvement scheme is in operation and not nullified by any judicial pronouncement or withdrawn by the Government, the improvement candidates are entitled to compete with the freshers for admission to courses, be it medical or otherwise.''

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