The High Court of Meghalaya at Shillong Bench has held that existence of vacant sanctioned seats eliminates the need for creation of a supernumerary seat, and a marginal procedural lapse of approximately 2 minutes by a meritorious OBC candidate, coupled with arbitrary and unfair conduct by the authorities, justifies equitable intervention.
The Court clarified that where authorities arbitrarily reject a meritorious candidate’s representation on the ground of an expired admission deadline while the very same deadline is extended on the identical date, and where the institute has suppressed the actual sanctioned intake capacity from the court during earlier proceedings, the High Court under Article 226 can mould the relief and direct admission to be granted in the next academic session on the basis of the same entrance examination score. The existence of vacant sanctioned seats eliminates the need for creation of a supernumerary seat.
A Single Judge Bench of Justice H. S. Thangkhiew found that the respondent institute had represented to the Court in earlier proceedings that only 2 PG seats were sanctioned by the Council, while its own affidavit in the subsequent writ petition revealed that the National Commission for Homeopathy had sanctioned 8 PG seats across 4 subjects. The Court held that this material suppression would have obviated the need for any direction to explore creation of a supernumerary seat, since vacant sanctioned capacity already existed.
The Court held the rejection on ground of expired deadline as unsustainable when the very deadline is extended on the same day. The petitioner’s representation was rejected on Jan 13, 2026 on the ground that the admission process had concluded on Dec 22, 2025. However, the Court noted that on the very same day, the National Commission for Homeopathy issued a notification extending the admission cut-off date to Jan 23, 2026. The Court held that with the extension in place, there was no impediment for the authorities to consider the petitioner’s representation, and the reasons for rejection were non-existent.
Emphasising that a marginal delay of approximately 2 minutes cannot defeat the substantive rights of a meritorious OBC candidate, the Court found that the petitioner, ranked Serial No. 1 in the merit list, arrived about 2 minutes late to the counselling venue due to traffic congestion, fuel station delay, and mechanical issues. The Court held that the delay was neither deliberate nor mischievous, the petitioner had sought immediate redressal on the spot, and denying a deserving OBC candidate the opportunity to pursue his degree on account of such a slight procedural irregularity would cause severe injustice.
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Briefly, the petitioner, Shri Vaskar Shil, had applied for the Post Graduate course of MD (Homeopathy) at the North Eastern Institute of Ayurveda and Homeopathy (NEIAH), Shillong, and had featured at Serial No. 1 in the merit list. However, his candidature was rejected on the ground of belated reporting for admission, he arrived approximately 2 minutes late to the counselling venue due to traffic congestion, delay at a fuel station, and mechanical issues with his vehicle.
Aggrieved by the rejection, the petitioner had earlier approached the High Court of Meghalaya seeking creation of a supernumerary seat in his favour. The Court declined to direct creation of a supernumerary seat since the lapse was attributable to the petitioner himself, but directed the petitioner to file a fresh representation before respondent No. 6 (NEIAH), which in turn was directed to forward the same to the National Commission for Homeopathy to explore the possibility of creating a supernumerary seat.
The respondents denied any relief on the ground that the admission process for the academic year 2025-26 had already concluded. Crucially, however, on the very same day, the National Commission for Homeopathy issued a notification extending the admission cut-off date to 23.01.2026 for the PG course in Homeopathy for the academic year 2025-26. The petitioner contended that the proposal to extend the last date was within the knowledge of the respondents well before the representation was rejected, rendering the rejection arbitrary.
