"Somewhere, Courts must close the gate", Madras High Court on NEET candidate's plea to rectify application error after declaration of results

The Madras High Court on Monday dismissed a batch of pleas seeking the Court's intervention to rectify errors made while applying for this year's NEET after the medical entrance exam results were announced, with Justice Anand Venkatesh observing that, "somewhere the line has to be drawn by the Courts.".The High Court declined to intervene in the matter, pointing out that the substantive rights of other candidates who had correctly entered their details would get affected. ."If such correction is permitted at this stage, it will open floodgates and it will also result in the authorities redoing the entire exercise by preparing the rank list once again", the Court added..Pertinently, the Judge went on to observe that there is a limit to how far the Court's intervention can be sought in such matters. The order points out that while courts have been taking a lenient view in such cases when the applications were at a nascent stage, ."Courts cannot keep on condoning the mistakes year after year and somewhere the Courts must close the gate and stop interfering in cases of this nature.".The Court added,."Any directions issued by this Court results in overburdening the authorities to redo the entire exercise for the mistakes committed by some candidates. Considering the volume of applications received by the Testing Agency and preparing the rank list, it will not be fair to make the agency undertake the exercise of preparing the rank list all over again. Such directions will also affect the rights of the other candidates who are participating in the same selection after giving the correct particulars. It is high time that the candidates will have to be made to own up for the mistakes committed by them. It is true that it will have an adverse effect on the aspiration of the candidate, but however somewhere the line has to be drawn by the Courts.".Courts cannot keep on condoning the mistakes year after year and somewhere the Courts must close the gate and stop interfering in cases of this natureMadras High Court.In this case, the petitioner-students submitted that they had erroneously applied under the unreserved category, although they belonged to the OBC community..When representations made to the National Testing Agency (NTA) to rectify the inadvertent error failed to yield any response, the High Court was approached for relief. .The NTA opposed the petitions, pointing out that the NEET candidates were given as many as eight opportunities to correct any application form errors. It was contended that the move to approach the High Court in this case was merely an afterthought after the results were declared. .Whereas the petitioners point to earlier Court orders where relief was granted to aggrieved students, Justice Venkatesh distinguished these cases, adding that,."... a precedent cannot be followed mechanically by Courts without seeing the facts of the particular case. Even little difference in facts, can make a precedent inapplicable to the facts of a given case.".The Judge further opined that when at least eight opportunities were given to the petitioners to make corrections in their application form, "The stand taken by the petitioners that such opportunities given by the Testing Agency through online mode, was not known to them, is totally unacceptable to this Court.".Similar claims were rejected by the Court in other cases last year, Justice Venkatesh recalled on the ground that, "candidates who do not undertake the corrections in spite of several opportunities given to them, cannot be permitted to knock the doors of this Court after the rank list is published.".As such the petitions before the Court were dismissed, with the Court also observing, ."This Court must maintain some consistency in matters of this nature and more particularly when this Court has taken a particular view in the previous academic year, on the very same issue. If this Court keeps changing its views every academic year on the very same issue, it will bring inconsistency and result in utter chaos. The litigants, who approach this Court should be given a clear picture on the view taken in a particular issue and it should not keep vacillating from one Judge to another."