Bombay High Court Directs CET Cell To Accept MBBS Students' Physical Forms After Petition Delay

Mumbai: Observing that students cannot be made to suffer on account of the court’s difficulty in taking up their petitions earlier, the vacation bench of the Bombay high Court on Monday directed the CET Cell to accept physical option forms of two students, seeking admission in MBBS, and open the access to the online software to permit them to participate for the Online Stray Vacancy Round.

The HC was hearing a petition by two students – Pradip Jaybhave and Yogini Patil – who initially secured admissions to MBBS courses in earlier CAP rounds. But inadvertently selected dental colleges instead of medical ones while participating in subsequent rounds.

Jaybhave mistakenly selected Government Dental College, Nagpur, instead of Government Medical College, Nagpur, while Patil selected Nair Hospital Dental College instead of Topiwala National Medical College & Nair Hospital, Mumbai. This error was due to the similarity in the names of the institutions, which led to an unintended choice. Under the existing rules, students who switch to a different college type are barred from future CAP rounds.

Advocate for students, Pooja Thorat, pointed out orders passed by high court granting interim reliefs to two other students in similar situations. However, advocate Dhruti Kapadia, appearing for CET Cell, submitted that those orders were passed before the deadline of October 27 for submitting online forms, making it infeasible to consider the current petitioners’ preferences after this cutoff.

The court emphasised that it had planned to address the students’ petitions on October 26 but faced delays, which should not adversely affect the petitioners.

After discussions, Kapadia agreed that, upon the court’s directive, the CET Cell would accept physical forms from the petitioner students despite the expired deadline.

A vacation bench of Justices Sandeep Marne and Manjusha Deshpande then directed the CET Cell to accept the physical forms by 1pm Monday and reopen the online software to include the petitioners’ preferences, ensuring the list for the Online Stray Vacancy Round would be declared by day’s end.

The bench clarified that this relief is only on account of the difficulty on the court’s part to take up the petitions earlier and hence would not be treated as precedent in any other case. Also, any admission gained through this round will be subject to the final outcome of the petitions, the HC has said.