1. ' ALI MUHAMMAD BALOCH, J.---Petitioner Aziz Ahmed is a student, who had applied for admission to the first year M.B.,B.S. Class in Liaquat Medical College, Jamshoro for the Session 1994-95. He belongs to Thatta District and there are 48 seats reserved for the candidates of District Thatta under the Prospectus published by the Government of Sindh as a policy for admission to Medical Colleges in Sindh. The age of the petitioner is below 21 years, therefore, alongwith his application form for admission to the Medical College, along other documents, he was also required to file the Domicile Certificate of his father as provided in rule 7 (H) of the Rules of Admission embodied in the Prospectus. The application of the petitioner for admission was scrutinized and he was found entitled to the admission as he had secured 799 marks and out of 48 candidates eligible for admission from District Thatta, he was placed at Sr. No,20. The provisional list of candidates for admission to the first year M.B.,B.S. For the Sessions 1994-95 in L.M.C. Centre (L.M.C. & P.M.C.) was published under the signature of Professor Irshad-Moryani, Chairman Selection Committee, L.M.C.
2. Centre Jamshoro, in which the name of the petitioners was shown at Sr.No,29. Subsequently, when the final list was displayed, the name of the petitioner was missing. However, mysteriously, one Azizullah was shown as the successful candidate for admission at Sr.No,20. The father's name and the caste against the successful candidate Azizullah, was however, shown as that of the petitioner.
3. The petitioner suspecting that there was some clerical error approached the College Authorities.
4. He was asked to make an application for necessary correction, which he did but next day the clerk informed the petitioner that the name of the petitioner has been omitted in the final list because copy of the Domicile Certificate of his father was not available in the papers. The petitioner was again surprised because his application was complete in all respects and included the copy of the Domicile Certificate of his father. Therefore, the petitioner approached the respondent No,2, the Chairman of the Selection Committee, with the original Domicile Certificate and pleaded that there is some mischief which has been committed in respect of his papers. The respondent No,2 obtained a photostat copy of the Domicile Certificate from the petitioner and assured him of his selection. However, fmally the petitioner was not selected although all the candidates at Sr. Nos.30 to 48 of the list for Thatta District were having lesser marks than the petitioner. The petitioner was, therefore, deprived of his right of admission for which he was otherwise entitled. The petitioner, therefore, approached this Court with this petition and has prayed that it may be declared that his non-selection by the respondents Nos.1 and 2 for the first year M.B.,B.S. Class of the Session 1994-95 in L.M.C. Jamshoro was illegal and mala fide and prayed for issuance of such writ enabling him to be enlisted for admission and be allowed to study in the concerned class. Alongwith this petition, the petitioner has filed the original Domicile Certificate issued to Mr. Allah Bachayo s/o Natho Karnani, the father of the petitioner on 12-8-1982 by the District Magistrate, Thatta. The petition was admitted for regular hearing by this Court on 27-4-1995 and the respondents were called upon to file the counter-affidavits, if any, counter-affidavit has been filed on behalf of the respondent No,2 by one Abdul Shakoor Memon, an assistant, working in the office of Liaquat Medical College, Jamshoro, in which he asserted that the petitioner had failed to file the copy of the Domicile Certificate of his father alongwith his application form and that due to this reason name of the applicant was excluded from the list of the finally selected candidates for admission. The respondent No,2 pleaded through its counter-affidavit that otherwise the petitioner is entitled to get admission but only because of this technical defect, he has been deprived of the admission. It has also been pleaded That admission of some other students, who had been shown in the list of 48 successful candidates, had been cancelled on the ground of filing of forged certificates but it was contended that in their place some other students had already been given admission.
5. Respondent No,7 has also filed a counter-affidavit, in which he has taken nearly the same pleas which are pleaded by the respondent No,2. He also insisted that the petitioner had failed to submit the copy of the Domicile Certificate of his father within the prescribed time. It was further pleaded that respondent No,7 had been admitted on merit and that the receipt issued on deposit of his fees in the College showed that he was admitted at Sr.No,47 amongst 48 candidates of Thatta District, as such the respondent No,7 pleaded that he was unnecessarily impleaded in this petition and that the matter concerned the petitioner and the respondents No,1 and 2 and he had nothing to do with the same and that he may not be disturbed in any case as he was not being affected even if the petition of the petitioner was allowed. Although respondents Nos.3, 4, 5 and 6, who are also the students who have been given admission and are at a later Sr. Number than the petitioners in the list of the successful candidates, they will not be affected even if the petition is allowed, as they have already been admitted on their merits and that they come within Sr.No,48.
2. Learned counsel for the parties have argued this petition today at length. The contention of the Advocate for the petitioners is that the petitioner had submitted a complete and perfect application form accompanied by all the necessary documents including the copy of the Domicile of his father and that is why his application form was not rejected and in the provisional list of the successful candidates for admission, his name was shown at Sr. No,29. Learned counsel for the petitioner insisted that the father of the petitioner was domiciled in District Thatta since very long and he is in possession of a domicile certificate which was issued to him in the year 1982, therefore, there could not be any reason not to produce the copy of the Domicile Certificate alongwith the application form of the petitioner. To prove the bona fides the original Domicile Certificate has been produced alongwith the petition, which has been perused and found in order. The learned counsel for the petitioner insisted that in case no certificate of domicile of the father of the petitioner was attached alongwith the application form of the petitioner, his name would not have been mentioned in the provisional list. If, for argument sake, it is accepted that his name was included in the provisional list so that the petitioner may rectify the lacuna of non-submission of the domicile certificate before the publication of the final list, there should have been at least some note or a notice to the petitioner or some intimation in any other form so that the petitioner would have filed the copy of the domicile certificate within the time before the display of the final list. The circumstances, according to the petitioner, prove that the petitioner has submitted the Certificate of Domicile of his father alongwith the application form but due to some mala fide reason some body in the office has played the mischief in order to accommodate some other candidate. The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner was that non-inclusion of the name of the petitioner was in the fmal list without letting him know the reason for his non-inclusion, was a sort of a major penalty and it amounted to condemning the petitioner without being heard and it amounted to violation of the principles of natural justice and it violated the fundamental rights of the petitioner. Even if the petitioner had failed to submit the copy of the Domicile Certificate before the respondent No,2 and thereby had violated the rules of admission, the said rules being executive and administrative in nature and not being statutory rules should not be interpreted in the manner in which the interpretation thereof should militate against the principles of natural justice, equity and common sense. The case of Khalid Shaikh v. Member and Chairman of Academic Council Selection Board and others (PLD 1987 Karachi 255) has been referred in support of the above contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner. The principle laid down in the above case squarely applies to the present case also. Firstly, we do not A accept the plea that the copy of the Domicile Certificate was not submitted by the petitioner alongwith his application form but even if the claim of the respondents is accepted that it was not so produced by the petitioner, the petitioner should not have been condemned unheard by excluding his name from the final list as thereby the principles of natural justice, equity and common sense have been violated and such action on the part of the respondent No,2 cannot be sustained. Apart from this, the submission of a domicile certificate alongwith the application form is for the purpose of supporting evidence of the status and eligibility of the candidate, and therefore, it does not relate to the inherent qualification of the candidate to be admitted to the course applied for. In appropriate cases therefore, even if the documents are not submitted within the limited period, the time could be relaxed. On this aspect of the case, we are supported by the findings in the case of Aasia Ishaque Siddiqui v. The Selection Board for Admission in the Medical Colleges of Sindh and others (1986 M LD 2079) Karachi, in which it has been held that documents filed alongwith the application form are merely the supporting evidence of the status and the eligibility of the candidate and do not relate to the inherent qualification of the candidate concerned. It has also been further held that the object of prescribed period of time for filing of documents is to clear the question of final selection when the candidate appears before the Selection Board. There seems to be no reason to interpret that this time prescribed in the rule should be so religiously and rigidly observed as to subject the substantive right of a candidate to the production of documents within this limited time schedule.
6. In appropriate cases the Selection Board may relax this limit and allow further time to the candidate to file these documents. In this case the petitioner was clearly deprived of a chance to submit the Domicile Certificate, if he had failed to attach the same with the application originally.
7. The Chairman, Selection Committee should have in all fairness intimated the petitioner before discarding the name of the petitioner from the final list of the selected candidates that he had failed to file the Domicile Certificate of his father. Besides, were cannot find cogent reasoning for accepting the plea of the respondents that the petitioner had failed to submit the copy of the Domicile Certificate of his father in view of the provisions of Rule 12 of the Rule of Admission embodied in the Prospectus. The rule 12 is reproduced as under:-- "12. Applications alongwith the attested copies of required documents, shall be submitted in the prescribed printed form and its columns must be filled incorrectly. Incomplete forms shall be rejected."
8. ' Had the petitioner failed to submit the copy of the Domicile alongwith his application form, his application was liable to rejection under the provisions of this rule and there was no occasion for the Selection Committee to include the name of the petitioner in the provisional list. Apart from this, we are also not able to comprehend the pleas taken by the respondents in view of the fact that in the final list of the selected candidates, the father's name and the caste of the petitioner has been shown against another candidate's name whose name is Azizullah. The petitioner's name is Aziz Ahmed. The possibility of some clerical error could not be ruled out in these circumstances and thereafter it appears that the respondents taking advantage of such clerical error, have tried to deprive the petitioner of his right to study in M.B.,B.S. Class.
9. ' For the foregoing reasons, we find that the petitioner is entitled to the declaration to the effect that his non-selection in the first year M.B.,B.S class for the session 1994-95 was illegal, and mala fide and unauthorized. However, we do not find any compulsion to grant any further declaration in respect of the respondents Nos.3 to 7, who have already been admitted and are studying the course of M.B.,B.S. The petition, therefore, succeeds and is, therefore, allowed. The name of the petitioner be deemed to be among the candidates selected for admission to M.B.,B.S. Class 1994-
95. .