P L D 1994 Karachi 370 (PLP)

WAJIHUDDIN AHMED, J.‑‑We have heard the learned counsel and the persons/parties present in Court. Certain things are manifest: firstly, that the petitioner, a student seeking admission in Liaquat Medical College, Jamshoro, had obtained the domicile certificate of his father on 17‑3‑1993 and that such certificate was a genuine and valid document but, being not available on the date of submission of the admission form on 4‑3‑1993 could, at any event, be submitted before 29‑3‑1994, which was the cut‑off date for submission of the applications. Secondly, because, according to the respondents Nos.1 to 3, such domicile certificate of the petitioner's father was not submitted at all, the petitioner was found to be disentitled and was not allowed admission even though he had secured 826 marks in the aggregate, whereas the last person admitted in the session was credited with only 804 such marks. In other words, but for the claimed non‑submission of the said domicile certificate the petitioner should have made to the medical college. The learned Additional Advocate‑General, Sindh, has fairly conceded that there was no apparent reason for the petitioner not to have, in actual. fact, submitted his father's domicile certificate, as per requirement, since the District Magistrate has also confirmed the grant and issuance of the certificate on, the date mentioned above. We, ourselves, upon hearing the three officers of the college present in Court, are of the opinion that, in all probability, such domicile certificate was submitted as urged by the petitioner but either due to inadvertence or on account of negligence or, at worst, even collusion with a possible beneficiary, it was not placed on the record though, specifically, where the responsibility should rest is a difficult question to resolve without a full fledged enquiry, which it should be .for the college authorities to undertake in the interest of smooth and blemishless administration and for which we ourselves have neither the time, nor the inclination nor perhaps the jurisdiction to delve. All that,, in the circumstances, we can say is that the domicile certificate in question seems ex facie, to have been submitted but for some reason, which, at this stage, we can only surmise it did not find its way to the record. But, on principle and authority, a student should not be made to suffer for something which, in all likelihood, cannot be laid at his door step by way o! a mistake or fault. The last is not the case here and the student has already suffered. Avoidable technicalities have no room in students grievances ventilated through recourse to Constitutional remedies. See Nighat Almas v. Masood Ahmed v. Selection Committee, Bolan Medical College, 1984 CLC 40, Aasia Ishaq Siddiqui v. Selection Board of Admission, 1986 MLD 2079 etc. On the question of relief, law seems to have evolved more beneficially since Abdul Wadood v. Pakistan, PL D 1957 Kar. 740, was decided, a Division Bench of this Court, even though holding for the petitioner then, concluding that it could not direct admission to the college and could only hope that the petitioner's application would be considered on merits for admission this year. Thus, inter alia, in Shahnaz Maqbool v. Province of Sindh, PLD 1979 SC 32, the Supreme Court issued a direction that the petitioner before it be admitted to the current session of the Liaquat Medical College. Normally, in the current state of the law, because a period of one year has since passed by and this petition has always been pending, we could have permitted the petitioner to compete for admission in the current year and correspondingly directed the respondents Nos.1 and 2 not to deduct the routine 5 marks in relation to the petitioner, which is the rule for students, who repeat for admission on account of having remained unsuccessful in an earlier attempt. However, that too may not be apposite because the last person, who has reportedly been admitted this year, had to his credit 827 marks, which happen to be one mark above those of the petitioner. In such circumstances, while the learned counsel for the petitioner, apparently on the authority of Abdul Sattar v. Government of Sindh, PLD 1978 Kar.59, insists that a seat may be added for the petitioner in the current year's session, we do not think that such a measure, which even if available, has its own implications and about which we feel called upon to express no opinion, may necessarily be adopted. The same object can be served if the petitioner is permitted to be admitted in the current session in the Liaquat Medical College, Jamshoro; provided always that the petitioner would be adjusted in the first seat, which gets vacated and becomes available in the ordinary course. But that does not mean that the petitioners' admission in any other alternative' would not be final. It would be final, subject to the referred procedural arrangement. With this the learned Addl. A.‑G. Sindh, upon instructions, agrees. Serial Nos.l and 2 together with. the, listed matters disposed of by consent accordingly. AA./M‑1965/K Order accordingly.