I MAHMUD, J.-The petitioners in following three Constitutional Petitions, namely Nos. 1033/75, 923/75 and 1224/75 seek to challenge the decisions of the Principal, Liaquat Medical College, Jamshoro, Hyderabad and Administrative Officer, Peoples' Medical College, Nawabshah denying admis--sion to them in the First Year M. B., B. S. Course for the Academic Session 1975-76 on the basis of the prospectus published by the Health Department Government of Sind for the year 1974- 75 relating to admissions to the five Medical Colleges in Sind. As common questions of law have arisen, all the three petitions which have been heard together, will be disposed of by this judgment.
2. The two petitioners in Constitutional Petition No. 1033/75, Abdul Qadir Bhatti and Musawwar Ahmed Bhatti, are brothers and permanent resident of Kunri, Taluka Umarkot, District Tharparkar.
They submitted their applications for admission in Liaquat Medical College, Jamshoro. Hyderabad in the First Year (v1. B., B. S. Course for Academic Session 1975-76 against the 64 seats allocated under the said prospectus for Muslim Boys resident of Tharparkar District. They were accepted for selection on merit basis and their names were displayed on the notice board at S. Nos. 55 and 56 respectively.
3. The petitioner in Constitutional Petition No. 923/75, Mubarak Ahmed son of Ghulam Ahmed, is a permanent resident of Zafarabad, Taluka Math, District Badin. He submitted his application form for admission to the First Year M. B., B. S. Course in Liaquat Medical College, Jamshoro, Hyderabad for Academic Session 1975-76 against the 40 seats allocated under the said prospectus for Muslim boys resident of District Badin. He was selected for admission on merit and his name was displayed on the notice board at S. No. 35.
4. The cases of the three petitioners are identical. Their case is that after their names had been displayed on the notice board, they were called by the Principal of the College and were informed orally that their names have been excluded from the approved list of candidates on the ground that they were Ahmedis and members of the minority community, and as such, they were not eligible for admission against the Muslim seats for which they had applied. Their grievance is that they have been treated as members of a non-Muslim minority and admissions have been denied to them only on the ground of their religion. That the denial of admission contravenes their fundamental right guaranteed to each citizen under Article 22 (3) (b) of the Pakistan Constitution, as also under section 6 of the University of Sind Act, 1972.
5. The case of the petitioner, Miss Mahmooda Farhat daughter of Saleemullah Khan in Constitutional Petition No. 1224/75, is that she is a permanent resident of Tharparkar District, Sind.
She applied for admission in the Peoples' Medical College, Nawabshah to the First Year M. B., B. S. Course for the Academic Session 1975-76 and was selected on merit against 21 seats allocated for Muslim girls resident of Tharparkar District and was placed at S. No. 17 She deposited the requisite fee- and started attending classes of the college. That on 14-11-1975, she received copy of a letter addressed to the Principal of the College by the Secretary, Department of Health, Government of Sind, respondent No. 1 herein, directing the Principal to cancel her admission after serving notice, on the ground that she belongs to the Ahmedi community and had submitted incorrect informa--tion in her admission form. Her grievance is that she has been threatened with cancellation of her admission only on the ground of her religion and, as such, the same contravenes her fundamental right under Article 22 (3) (b) of the Pakistan Constitution as also under section 6 of the Sind University Act, 1972.
6. The case of the respondents are set out in the counter-affidavit of Dr. Ali Mohammad Ansari, Secretary, Department of Health, Government of Sind, the respondent No. 1 herein, is that in view of the limited number of seats in the Medical Colleges, seats have been distributed and allocated among Muslims and minorities on a district-wise basis and in ratio to their population. The ratio between boys and girls in both the categories is 75 % and 25 % respectively. The categories are mutually exclusive and selection is made in each of the categories on the basis of merit inter se.
That the categorization of seats among the various communities is permissible under law and is a fair and reasonable method of regulating admission to the Medical Colleges and the -petitioners have not been .Denied admis--sion only on the ground of their religion; that the prospectus does not infringe the fundamental right of the petitioners under the Constitution; nor does it violate the provisions of section 6 of the University of Sind Act, 1972.
7. The main contention urged before us by Mr. Mobashir Latif on behalf of the petitioners is that the denial of admission to the petitioners on the ground that they belong to the Ahmed! Minority community is a denial of admission to citizens only on the ground of their religion and contravenes their fundamental right under Article 22 (3) (b), as well as Article 25 of the .4 Pakistan Constitution; that the Prospectus in question is not law and, in any case, it contravenes section 6 of the University of Sind Act, 1972. In support of these contentions, learned counsel referred to case-law from various jurisdictions.
8. Mr. Abdul Hafiz Lakho, Additional Advocate-General appearing on behalf of the respondents submitted that these questions of law have been concluded by the judgment of the Division Bench of this High Court (of which one of as was a member) in Constitutional Petition No. 619/72 Kaimurz Ferozepurwala v. The Administrator. Dow Medical College, Karachi and another and 12 other connected petitions, which were decided by the judgment dated 6-8-1973, and that the said judgment was binding on us. The petitioners in those Constitutional Petitions belonged to the Hindu and Parsi minority communities. In the Prospectus for the relevant year, 3 seats were reserved for minority boys for admission to the Dow Medical College, -Karachi, while 10 seats were reserved for minority boys in Liaquat Medical College, Jamahoro, Hyderabad. As the minority seats had already been filled up by applicants from those communities who had obtained higher marks than the petitioners, the petitioners were refused admission. Their griev--ance was that the allocation of seats under the Prospectus between the various communities on the basis of their religion, and the rule in the Prospectus that they were not eligible to compete for the general merit seats, is discriminatory and amounts to denial of admission to them on the ground only of their religion and infringed their fundamental right under Article 19(3) (b) of the then Interim Constitution. After discussing a number of authorities including those of our Supreme Court, the Division Bench observed as follows:- "It is clear that the right guaranteed or protected by Article 1 9 (3) (b) (now Article 22 (3) (b) of the present Constitution) is made "subject to law" as is stated in the opening phrase of paragraph 3 of Article 19. Historically speaking, the phrase "subject to law" finds place for the first time in Article 19
(3) of the Interim Constitution in so far as Constitutional protection is given for safeguarding against denial of admission to certain educational institutions on the ground only of race, religion, caste or place of birth. While dealing with the phrase "subject to law" appearing in Article 18 of the 1956 Constitution of Pakistan in another context, their Lordships of the Supreme Court observed in Jibendra Kishore v. Province of East Pakistan (PLD 1957 SC (Pak.) 9), that the phrase means that although a right guaranteed by the Constitution cannot be taken away by law entirely, yet the exercise of that right may be regulated by law."
The Division Bench accordingly held that in view of the limited number of seats available for admission, as well as the necessity to provide for fair and adequate representation to all the communities, the allocation of seats to various communities according to their ratio in population was a valid method for regulating admission to the Medical Colleges, and that the rule providing that minority applicants shall not compete with applicants falling in another category is not denial of admission only on the ground of his religion and did not infringe Article 19 (3) (b) [(now Article 22(3) (b)] of the Constitution. On the question whether Prospectus is law, the Division Bench held as follows:- "There is no doubt that the instructions contained in the Prospectus have been issued by the Sind Government in the Ministry of Health in order to regulate admissions to the colleges maintained and adminis--tered by that Department in the widest sense in Asma Jilani v. Government of Punjab (PLD 1972 SC 139). It has been so construed in the case of Naseem Mahmood v. Principal, King Edward Medical College, Lahore (PLD 1965 Lah. 272) and in other judgments of this Court as well."
Accordingly, the petitions were dismissed.
9. Under Article 260 (3) of the Constitution, a person belonging to the Ahmedi group, is not a Muslim for the purposes of the Constitution or law and being a member of a minority community, the precedent judgment of the Division Bench is directly applicable to the case of the petitioners. Mr. Mobashir Latif submitted that the decision of one Division Bench is not binding on another Division Bench of the same High Court and referred to the view of the Lahore Bench of the former High Court of West Pakistan expressed in Bashir Ahmad and others v. The Slate (PLD 1960 Lah. 687) that the decision of a Division Bench of the Court can be dissented from by another Division Bench or even by the same Bench. The view of the Karachi Bench on the other hand appears to be different and is expressed in Murad Ali v. Collector of Central Excise and Land Customs (PLD 1963 Kar. 280) namely, that in order to maintain judicial decorum and propriety, the decision of a Division Bench on a question of law should be followed by another Bench and that if they differ from it, the proper course to adopt would be to refer the question for the decision of a Full Bench. The learned Additional Advocate-General referred us to the observations of the Supreme Court in the Province of East Pakistan v. Dr. Azizullslam (PLD 1963 SC 296), which were approved by the Supreme Court again in The Province of East Pakistan v. Sirajul Haq Patwari and another (PLD 1966 SC 854) at page 920 which are as follows:- "In a recent case decided on appeal from the High Court of East Pakistan, i. e. East Pakistan Province v. Dr. Azizul Islam (PLD 1963 SC 296), this Court indicated that where a Division Bench of the High Court is inclined to take a different view from that declared in an earlier judgment of a similar Division Bench, one course open to the Court was to "have expressed their doubts regarding the view taken in the precedent case, in a Court of co-equal jurisdiction, while yet following that view, and left the matter to be raised in appeal before this Court. The alternate course, under the Rules of the Court, was to refer the matter to a larger Bench."
We are bound by the above-quoted observations of the Supreme Court, which require us to follow the view taken by the Division Bench in the precedent case and to leave the matter to be raised in appeal to the Supreme Court. We understand from the learned Additional Advocate-General that the matter is already before the Supreme Court in appeal from the judgment of the former Division Bench. As we are following the view of the former Division Bench on the questions of law raised in these Constitutional Petitions, we do not propose to discuss the submissions of counsel and the case-law cited by them.
10. One last submission of Mr. Mobashir Latif however, must be considered which did not arise for consideration in the precedent Division Bench judgment. The submission is that the Prospectus is contrary to section 6 of the Sind University Act, 1972 which provides that:- "The University shall be open to all persons of either sex and of what ever religion, race, creed, class or colour and no person shall be denied the privileges of the University on the grounds of religion, race, caste, creed, class or colour."
In my view, this submission is misconceived, because, apart from other considerations, such as that the said Act is a sub constitutional legislation, the admission to an affiliated college, such as the Liaquat Medical College, Jamshoro, Hyderabad, is not a matter concerning the privileges of the Univer--sity.
11. The further contention urged on behalf of the petitioner Miss Mahmooda Farhat in Constitutional Petition No. 1224/75 was that the respondent having granted admission to her, could not revoke it.
Apart from the question that admission to a college is not a vested right of a P citizen, paragraph 13 of the Prospectus enables the respondent to cancel admission which has been obtained by furnishing incorrect information in her application form, relating to her religion's denomination.
12. For the foregoing reasons, we dismiss the Writ Petitions Nos. 1033/ 75, 923/75 and 1224/75.
However, we would leave the parties to bear their own costs.