Summary
The Supreme Court struck down Kerala’s 2017 Ordinance seeking to regularise 180 medical admissions already invalidated through judicial proceedings. The Ordinance did not cure a defect in existing law; it directly undid binding decisions and the court-mandated fair admission procedure. Retrospective validating legislation may change the legal foundation within constitutional limits, but cannot simply nullify individual adjudications. Article 142 relief was refused.
Issues
- Whether the State could regularise admissions already invalidated by the courts through an Ordinance disregarding the mandatory application process.
- Whether the Ordinance cured a legal defect or impermissibly nullified judicial decisions.
- Whether the prior Supreme Court disposal or Article 142 permitted reopening and regularisation.
Provisions considered
- Clauses 2–5, Kerala Professional Colleges (Regularisation of Admission in Medical Colleges) Ordinance, 2017The scheme authorised regularisation despite judicial cancellation and defects in application mode and production of records. It was struck down as a direct intrusion into adjudication rather than a cure of a legislative defect. (¶¶ 15, 18–21, 31–34, 37, 40)
- Article 213(1), Constitution of IndiaThe power invoked to promulgate the Ordinance did not authorise the State to nullify binding judicial decisions through this regularisation scheme. (¶¶ 18–21, 34, 40)
- Articles 14 and 50, Constitution of IndiaThe Court applied separation-of-powers principles and found that the scheme perpetuated arbitrary admissions and invaded the field reserved for the judiciary. (¶¶ 24, 34)
- Article 141, Constitution of IndiaThe Court distinguished non-speaking refusals of leave from reasoned decisions and held the earlier adjudication and independent directions binding in the circumstances. (¶ 35–36)
- Article 142(1), Constitution of IndiaThe Court refused to use complete-justice powers to nullify its earlier judgments or perpetuate the admission illegality. (¶ 39)
Held
- A competent legislature may retrospectively amend a law to remove the defect or change the foundation on which a judgment rests, subject to constitutional limits. It cannot directly annul an individual judicial decision or act as an appellate authority over it. The substance and effect of the validating measure must be examined. (¶ 21–30)
- The Ordinance targeted the admissions cancelled in the two colleges and allowed their regularisation irrespective of online application and non-production of records. Those requirements arose from binding judicial decisions ensuring fairness and transparency; no defect in an existing legislative provision had been removed. (¶¶ 18–21, 31–34)
- The earlier Supreme Court order followed extensive hearing and examination of records, upheld the ASC order and issued independent directions to accommodate thirty wrongly excluded meritorious students in the following session. It could not be dismissed as an unreasoned refusal of leave permitting the State to reopen the adjudication. (¶¶ 33, 35–36)
- NEET merit was already part of the earlier admission framework. Invoking it again introduced no new legal foundation, and a fresh inquiry into who might otherwise have obtained admission could not undo the final decisions or ignore other excluded candidates. (¶ 37–38)
- Article 142 could not be exercised here to negate the prior judgments and perpetuate illegality. The Court declared the Ordinance ultra vires for encroaching on judicial power and allowed the writ petitions. (¶ 39–40)
Result
Writ petitions allowed; Kerala Professional Colleges (Regularisation of Admission in Medical Colleges) Ordinance, 2017 declared ultra vires for impermissibly nullifying judicial decisions.