Case Note & Summary
The matter pertains to a batch of writ petitions filed before the High Court of Karnataka, Kalaburagi Bench, by several private dental colleges and their students. The petitioners challenged the actions of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) in issuing endorsements/communications that disapproved the admissions of students to the first year Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) course for the academic years 2014-15 and 2015-16. The dental colleges involved included S.B. Patil Dental College & Hospital, Bidar; S.B. Patil Institute of Dental Science & Research, Bidar; Hyderabad Karnataka Development Education Trust’s Dental College Hospital and Research Institute, Humnabad; and S. Nijalingappa Institute of Dental Sciences & Research, Kalaburgi. The students, who were admitted by these colleges, were aggrieved by the university's refusal to approve their admissions, which effectively barred them from continuing their studies and appearing for examinations. The impugned communications for the 2014-15 batch were Annexure-A dated 04.03.2015 and Annexure-A1 dated 04.06.2015. For the 2015-16 batch, the endorsements included those dated 31.03.2016, 23.04.2016, and 25.04.2016, among others. The petitioners sought writs of certiorari to quash these endorsements and communications, and writs of mandamus directing the respondents, including the State of Karnataka, the Dental Council of India, and RGUHS, to treat the admissions as valid and to permit the students to pursue their course and take the first-year BDS examinations. The petitions were filed under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India. The matters were heard by a division bench comprising Justice Krishna S. Dixit and Justice P. Krishna Bhat. After hearing arguments on 27.08.2020, the court reserved its order. On 04.09.2020, the order was pronounced. However, the available text of the judgment is truncated, and the substantive reasoning and final decision are not fully disclosed. Consequently, the outcome of the petitions remains unclear from the provided excerpt.
Issue of Consideration
Whether the impugned endorsements/communications issued by the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences disapproving the admissions of the petitioner-students to the BDS course were valid and whether the admissions ought to be approved.
