1. DORAB PATEL, J.-The petitioner passed her Intermediate Examination of 1974 from Nawabashah District, where she is permanently resident, and as she wanted to become a doctor, she applied for admission in the Liaqat Medical College, Hyderabad against the quota of 29 seats reserved for girls from Nawabshah District. She submitted on 6-1-1976 her application form to the aforesaid college, and I may point out here that this application form, which has been prepared under rule 11 of the Prospectus of medical colleges in the Province of Sind for the year 1975-76, is a very lengthy document, because of the particulars which have to be supplied by students seeking admission in the medical colleges of the Province. Apart from the usual particulars, such as marks and date of birth, applicants have to supply a certificate of the Principal of the School from which they have passed out and also a Permanent Residence Certificate from the District Magistrate of the District in which they are permanently resident. Further, both these certificates are printed in the application form to be submitted by students and are Appendix I and Appendix III of that form respectively. Therefore, the Principal and the District Magistrate have to sign the certificates which are contained in the application form itself. But what the petitioner did was that she got all the columns in the aforesaid certificates in Appendices of her form duly filled, but the same were not signed by her Principal and the District Magistrate of Nawabshah respectively. Instead, she obtained certificates from her Principal and the District Magistrate and these certificates were signed by the said Principal and the District Magistrate Nawabshah, and it is common ground between the parties that these signed certificates are identical to those contained in Appendices of the application form of the Liaqat Medical College.
2. Now under the rules contained in the Prospectus, students are called for an interview after their forms have been scrutinised, and as the petitioner stood high in the order of merit for the reserved quota of girls from Nawabshah District (her name being at Serial No. 8) she was called for an interview on 16th March 1976 and her name was also posted in the college notice board. When she appeared for her interview, the then Administrator of the Liaqat Medical College examined her form again and told her that it was not in order, because the certificates contained in Appendices had not been signed by the Principal and the District Magistrate respectively. The petitioner, who appears to have been a plucky girl, had brought the original certificates duly signed with her, therefore, she offered to produce them, but the Administrator declined to scrutinise them. In these circumstances, as the 7th March 1976 was holiday, the petitioner wrote a letter the next day to the then Administrator of the Liaqat Medicial College asking for permission to take back her application form, so that she could return it in a couple of days after obtaining the signatures of her Principal and of the District Magistrate on Appendices of the form respectively. She did not get any reply to this letter, and when she discovered that she had been refused admission in the college, she made further representations. But, according to Mr. Wajihuddin Ahmad, she was told that she should apply for admission in the next academic session, namely 1976-77, therefore, content with the assurances thus given to her, she did not take any further steps to enforce her rights and applied for admission the next year. But when she applied for admission in the session of 1976-77, she was informed that the rules had been changed and that her application could not be entertained in view of this change in the rules. She, therefore, filed a writ petition in the Sind High Court to enforce her right to be admitted to the Liaqat Medical College. This writ petition was admitted in due course, but by their judgment dated 29-5-1978, a Division Bench of the High Court dismissed the writ petition Hence this petition for leave. We had ordered notice on this petition toy the Advocate-General, as it turned on a very short point of law and could therefore be disposed of expeditiously, and we have now heard full argu--ments on the case both from Mr. Wajihuddin Ahmad and from the learned Advocate-General and I would now proceed to examine these submissions.
3. Mr, Wajihuddin Ahmad placed great reliance on what is described as an A important note on the opening page of the application form. In so far as it is relevant, it reads: "No Incomplete Admission Form shall be entertained and the candidate shall not be called for Interview."
4. According to Mr. Wajihuddin Abmad, this note imposed an obligation on the respondent to call a candidate for an interview only if his or her form was in order, and, as the petitioner had been called for an interview, learned counsel's submission was that the respondent was estopped from contending that the petitioner's application form was not in order. I am unable to accept this submission for more reasons than one. In the first place, it seems to me that this very clumsily worded sentence on which learned counsel relied is only for the protection of the respondent and does not confer any right on applicants. Any other view would lead to far reaching and absurd consequences. Thus, for example, if the submission advanced be correct, the petitioner would have been entitled to an interview, even if her form had really not been in order, and bearing in mind, the keen competition for seats in medical colleges, this would be most unfair to other students.
5. Additionally, learned counsel's submission assumes that negligence in scrutinising an admission form amounts to a representation on the part of the respondent. I do not think this is so, but even if it is assumed for the take of argument, that a notice to a student to appear for an interview, when he or she was not entitled to an interview, amounts to a representation, this would not help the case of the petitioner, because as observed by Momir" on The Law of Evidence, 4th Edition, p. 1234:- "Section 115 of the Evidence Act implies that no declaration, act to commission will amount to an estoppel unless the person to whom it was made has altered his position in consequence of the representation The person pleading the estoppel must show that he had been led to do something detrimental to his own interests owing to the action of the other party."
6. I agree with the statement of the law. The petitioner can succeed only by A proving that she had acted to her detriment because she had appeared for an interview. But I do not see how it can conceivably be argued that she had acted to her detriment by appearing for an interview which she had herself sought, therefore, I am unable to accept learned counsel's submission.
7. However, the obligation imposed on applicants under the application form was to produce a certificate of good character from their Principal and a certificate of Permanent Residence from the local District Magistrate, and as the petitioner had admittedly both these certificates, the interpretation placed on the rules by the learned Judges of the High Court amounts to making a fetish of technicalities, therefore, we enquired from the learned Advocate-General about the authority under which the application form had been issued, and he naturally referred us to rule 11 of the Prospectus. This rule reads: "Application shall be submitted in the prescribed printed form and all its columns must be filled in correctly. Incomplete applications shall not be considered. Applications of 3rd Division candidates shall not be considered."
8. As we are not concerned with the case of third divisioners, the only question is whether the application form of the petitioner was an incomplete application within the meaning of this rule because the Appendices were not signed by the Principal and by the District Magistrate who had in fact issued these certificates, respectively. Although the rule does not specify in terms when a form is incomplete it is obvious that a form would be incomplete if it is not in accordance with the mandatory directions, if any, contained in the rule. But as the only relevant direction under the rule is that "all its columns must be filled in correctly", the question is whether the columns in these Appendices were correctly filled in by the petitioner, accordingly, a brief reference to these columns is necessary.
9. The columns in Appendix I relate to information which the student is required to supply about his academic performance and his character as a student, whilst the columns in Appendix III relate to information about the District in which the student is permanently resident. Therefore, we enquired from the learned Advocate-General whether the petitioner had filled in these columns correctly. He admitted that the petitioner had filled in correctly all the columns in these Appendices. His only grievance was that neither Appendix I nor Appendix III had been signed by the Principal and by the District Magistrate, respectively. It is true that these Appendices should have been signed by the Principal and by the Districtel Magistrate, Nawashah respectively at the places indicated for the same but the failure of these officers to sign in the space provided for their signatures cannot be described as a failure to fill in the columns of the 8 Appendices, because there is, in fact, no column against which such signatures can be made.
10. I am aware that I am placing a very strict construction on the rule, but the learned Advocate- General was unable to persuade me to place a liberal construction on the rule, and no doubt this was because the origin of the Prospectus is shrouded in this manner. Was it framed in the exercise of some statutory power? If so, was it approved by the Legislature? If the answer to these questions be in the affirmative, on the rule laid down by Russell, C. J., in Kruse v. Johnson ((1898) 2 QB 91), the learned Advocate-General would have a case for contending that we should place a very liberal construction on rule 11, but he is not able to answer these questions, and it is not even known whether the Prospectus is some form of delegated Legislation or whether it is merely an offer by the Government of the terms on which it is willing to receive students in the medical colleges run by it.
11. Fortunately, for the petitioner, this obscurity appears to be the hall-mark of rules framed for medical colleges in the country, therefore, we had occasion in Muhammad Iqbal Khan Niazi v.
12. Vice-Chancellor, Punjab University, etc. (PLD 1979 SC), to examine the validity of the rules framed for admission to the medical colleges in the province of the Punjab. There, as in the instant case, the learned Advocate-General had invited us to place a very liberal construc--tion on the Prospectus, but we had been left to grope in the dark on the question whether the Prospectus of the Punjab medical colleges was some form of subordinate Legislation or whether it was only a document in the nature of a contract. We examined the law from both angles and held that the Prospectus had to be construed very strictly, like the bye-laws of Railway companies or dock companies, and we further held that "any provision in the Prospectus which is unfair or unreasonable must be struck down as invalid."
13. I would re-affirm the view taken in Muhammad Iqbal Khan Niazi's case This means that we must place a very strict construction upon rule 11, even though it may mean answering the respondent's technicality with a counter c technicality, and, therefore, the petitioner's mistake in obtaining the signatures of her Principal and of the District Magistrate, Nawabshah on separate sheets instead of on the Appendices did not amount to a failure to fill ir, the columns of these Appendices correctly.
14. But, as it is not in dispute that the petitioner was otherwise entitled to admission on merits and would have been granted admission, but for this very petty and technical error in her application form, this conclusion is fatal to the judgment under appeal.
15. When we pointed out to the learned Advocate-General that the learned Judges had misread rule 11 and the petitioner's application form, he feebly submitted that the petitioner's claim would nonetheless be hit by a new rule which had been inserted in the Prospectus for the year 1976-77.
16. That Prospectus is not before us nor are the subsequent Prosper tunes before us, however, it is common ground between the learned counsel that this new rule in the Prospectus for 1976-77 reads: "(2). Only those candidates who have passed their Intermediate Science (Premedical)/B. Sc.
17. Examinations held in Annual 1976 and Supplementary 1975 in at least IInd Division are eligible for consideration."
18. The learned Advocate-General's submission on this rule was that because the petitioner had passed her "Intermediate Science (Premedical)/B. Sc. Examination held in" 1974 instead of in the Supplementary 1975, she was not entitled to admission in the Liaqat Medical College. I would pause to examine the implications of this submission. As the petitioner passed in the regular examination of 1974 and not in the supplementary held next year, it means, in the absence of some evidence to the contrary and there is no such evidence, that the petitioner's academic record was better than D that of the girls who were admitted from Nawabshah in the next academic session because they could not pass the regular examination of 1974 and therefore passed the supplementary held in the next year. So on the construction placed upon this new rule by the learned Advocate-General, the, petitioner had to suffer, because she was a better student than many of those granted admission in the 1976-77 session. Additionally, if the petitioner could not be admitted in the 1976-77 session, could she be admitted into the subsequent session on the basis of her success in the 1974 examination? It would appear that the subsequent prospectus also contains a rule similar to the new rule, so that when ever the petitioner seeks admission she would be hit by the provision in the rule that she had passed her examination in a year earlier than that prescribed in the rules. In other words, because the then Administrator of the Liaqat Medical College illegally rejected her application form on a misreading of the rules, the petitioner is now debarred from admission in that College. The consequences of accepting the learned Advocate-General's submission would be monstrous. However, it is not necessary to discuss this aspect of the case further, because on the view taken by us in Muhammad 1gbal Khan Nlazi's case, it is clear that the new rule relied upon by the learned Advocate-General must be struck down as illegal to the extent to which it is retrospective. I would, therefore, hold that this rule does not come in the way of the petitioner's claim to be admitted to the current session of the College.
19. In these circumstances, after hearing both the learned counsel, we converted the petition into an appeal, allowed it, and gave a direction that the petitioner should be admitted to the current session of the Liaqat Medical College. But I must here refer to a difficulty to which learned Advocate-General drew our attention. As classes for the current session bad begun a couple of months ago, the learned Advocate-General pointed out that if petitioner was permitted to attend classes now, she might not be able to comply with the requirements of the college for the attendance of classes and lectures, and, he submitted that there would be no justification whatever for relaxing the rules of the College in such matters. I agree with the submission that the rules about attendance should not be relaxed, but Mr. Wajihuddin Ahmad stated that the petitioner was willing to abide by all the rules of the College and wanted admission at her cost and risk.
20. Accord--ingly, we direct that the petitioner be admitted to the current session at her cost and risk.
21. As the appeal turned on the construction of a somewhat obscure rule, I would leave the parties to bear their own costs.