A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court has stayed the government order taking away the right of religious heads to issue community certificates for candidates seeking admission to minority quota seats in MBBS and BDS courses in minority-run self-financing medical colleges and entrusting the right with the revenue authorities.
The Bench prima facie held that the government had taken the hasty step without application of mind and in a cursory and casual manner. The court directed the government to file an affidavit in the case. The court extended the time stipulated to submit community certificates till August 14.
The court passed the interim order on a batch of writ petitions filed by various minority medical college managements challenging the order. The petitioner said the government had approved the seat matrix of colleges which virtually accepted the authority of religious heads to issue community certificates for granting admission.
They pointed out that unlike the order in respect of medical/dental admission, the circulars issued by the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations in respect of the admission for engineering and pharmacy courses recognised the right of the religious heads to issue community certificates.
The court had doubted the competency of the revenue authorities to issue community certificates, particularly as to the various sub-classes in Christian/Muslim communities and as to the machinery the revenue authorities put in place to certify the same.
The court pointed out that no material was produced as to how the community status of various sub-classes could be identified by the revenue authorities of a particular village or a taluk especially when such persons claiming community status may be coming even from outside the State.
The government failed to explain how such certificates could be issued by the revenue authorities in such a short span of time after making inquiries.
When the petitions came up for hearing last time, the government pleader submitted on instructions from Joint Secretary Prakash B.S. that the earlier order allowing the religious head to issue certificate was withdrawn. However, when the matter was taken up later, the government pleader submitted the government order till “stand as it is.”
The court directed the government to conduct an inquiry into the circumstances under which the wrong instruction was given over phone and take appropriate action, if there was any delinquency on the part of the officer.