Bombay High Court rescues MBBS aspirant who goofed up online submission

Mumbai: Shashi Saraswat, a medical aspirant for an MBBS seat who had been disqualified from an online selection process, when she erred while filling a form for an MBBS course has been rescued by the Bombay High Court.

The division bench of Justices S C Dharmadhikari and Bharati Dangre after observing that a meritorious student was suffering having made a mistake have directed that the Commissioner of Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell allows the student, Shashi Saraswat, to participate in the second round of admissions.

The bench was responding to a petition filed by the girl after being disqualified from the online selection process after she committed a mistake at the time of form filling.

Saraswat having cleared the NEET with a 3178th rank had registered herself online for the Health Science Course under the Defence 3 quota within the prescribed tenure. She was provided with a login password for further process.

The girl who was considered eligible in the Ist merit list and had to submit her preferred college list online by mistake clicked on the wrong group of colleges, according to her petition.

Saraswat was held eligible in the first merit list and had to then select college preferences online. However, the petitioner by mistake clicked on the wrong colleges, as per the petition. The mistake made was that she clicked on the nursing colleges instead of the those that provided an MBBS course study. She approached the CET cell for correction of error, however, she has declined all help.

The argument presented by CET was that with only 12 seat availability, in the Defence 3 category, and a total of 73 students have filled the form and 10 booked during the first round, the second round permission to the petitioner would affect the remaining students.

The HC, however, said, “A bonafide exception can be made only to redress the gross injustice to an otherwise meritorious candidate who is the daughter of a defence personnel”.

The high court after going through the selection rules observed that a candidate could fill online preferences-multiple times before clicking the ‘submit’ button.

“However, once the ‘submit’ button is clicked then there is no provision to change the preference, ” the information brochure explains, “cautioning candidates to be very careful while filling the online preference form and clear instructions are given to the candidates as to the selection of preferences of colleges,” the bench stated in the order reports the Financial Express.

The judges claiming faith in the process followed by the Commissioner of the Common Entrance Test Cell, it said it was confronted with a student like a petitioner who has mistakenly committed a gross error.

The high court declined to accept the CET Cell logic that the petitioner’s participation would affect the admission process at this stage and the meritorious would lose a chance. The court revealed that the next in line on the defence 3 quota was way down on the All India Ranks as compared to the in line.

“Merely because the petitioner has erred and we emphasise grossly in filling the preference form still the position remains that the merit secured by her would not be wiped and she cannot be thrown out of the process,” the order said.

The court granted the petitioner permission to participate in the second round of the admission process and colleges all over again under the Defence3 quota.