Exercising its extraordinary constitutional powers, the Supreme Court has allowed four medical students of Kerala to complete their MBBS course despite their admissions being irregular as they failed to qualify in the mandatory common entrance examination.

A bench of justices Cyriac Joseph and Ranjana Prakash Desai allowed the private medical students to complete their course as a 'special case', as they have already completed four and half years of their study.

"In the light of the peculiar facts and circumstances stated above, we are of the view that it is quite unjust and unfair to discharge the appellants at this stage.

"This is an eminently fit case for invoking this court's powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to permit the appellants to continue and complete the MBBS course to which they were admitted in the year 2007," Justice Joseph writing the judgement said.

Deepa Thomas, Anu Rubina Ansar, Anjana Babu and Abhay Babu were admitted to various colleges in 2007-08, though ineligible as they failed to satisfy the eligibility criteria stipulated by Medical Council of India (MCI).

While the MCI regulations insist on a minimum of 50 per cent marks in both the qualifying examination and Competitive Entrance Examination (CEE) separately, the prospectus issued by the private medical colleges overlooked the CEE requirement.

Though these students secured more than 50 per cent marks in the qualifying examination, they could not secure the minimum 50 per cent marks in the CEE, but were admitted to the course by the colleges.

The Kerala High Court had earlier turned down the students' plea for regularising their admission following which they had moved the apex court.

"Admittedly the appellants were eligible for admission as per the criteria laid down in the prospectus, but they were not eligible for admission as per the criteria laid down in the MCI regulations, as they secured only less than 50 per cent marks in Physics, Chemistry and Biology taken together in the competitive examination.

"It was contended that Regulation 5(5)(ii) is clumsily worded, with the words 'taken together' appearing in several places giving an impression that minimum 50 per cent is required when the marks of qualifying examination and the marks of the CEE are taken together."

"It was also contended that such an omission or mistake occurred due to lack of sufficient clarity in Regulation 5(5)(ii). There is some substance in the contention," the apex court observed.

The bench said having regard to the special facts and circumstances of this case and the extraordinary situation arising in the case, it was constrained to invoke jurisdiction under Article 142 of the Constitution 'for doing complete justice in the matter before us'.

"We although agree with the view of the MCI and the high court that the admissions of the appellants were irregular as they did not satisfy the requirement of securing not less than 50 per cent marks in the CEE as prescribed in the MCI Regulations, we are inclined to take a considerate view in the special facts and circumstances.

"Hence we direct that, as a special case, the appellants shall be allowed to continue and complete their MBBS course and also permit them to appear in the university examinations as if they had been regularly admitted to the course," the apex court said.