Holding that judicial discipline of a single judge is bound by the judgement of a division bench of the same court, unlike other High Court judgments, a single Judge of the Madras High Court refused to refer a plea challenging the mode of reservation adopted in admission to medical college, which has already been dealt with by a division bench.
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Chennai:
Justice N Anand Venkatesh, on pointing out that a single Judge cannot mechanically refer a matter to a Bench unless it is found that the judgment of the larger Bench is per incuriam, said “The judgment of the division bench is binding on this court and the same issue has already been dealt with and upheld in favour of the Selection Committee, Directorate of Medical Colleges.”
The plea on behalf of a student, who had completed his Class 12, contended that out of 2,747 seats about 870 seats are allotted to the open competition in government colleges and 327 seats are allotted to the self-financing colleges under open competition. But the method of allotment of seats by the selection committee is contrary to the reservation of seats provided in the prospectus and ultimately the percentage of seats under open competition gets reduced depriving the rightful claims of candidates falling under the open category. Countering this, the government counsel submitted that by adopting loop method, the meritorious order in open competition candidates will be maintained and after this only the allotment of reserved category candidates will be made in the order of merit.
