Neeraj Kumar Sainy & Ors. v. State of U.P. & Ors.
Background
Candidates who had cleared the UP Postgraduate Medical Entrance Examination (UPPGMEE), 2016 sought a High Court mandamus directing the State, King George's Medical University, and the Medical Council of India to hold second, third, and "mop-up" rounds of counselling so that around 71 vacant postgraduate medical seats would not go unfilled. This followed an earlier Supreme Court decision (State of U.P. v. Dinesh Singh Chauhan, 2016) that had already finally settled how the merit list and admissions for 2016-17 were to be redrawn and conducted, after which fresh counselling was held and most seats filled. The High Court dismissed the candidates' writ petition, leading to this appeal.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that the admission process for the 2016-17 academic year had already been conclusively settled by its own earlier ruling in Dinesh Singh Chauhan, and that the appellants had stayed silent while that litigation was pending instead of raising their grievance then. The Court rejected the appellants' reliance on the maxim "actus curiae neminem gravabit" (an act of the court shall prejudice no one), holding that this principle protects vigilant litigants from court-caused delay, not those who sit on their rights and only approach the court after seeing favourable orders obtained by others (University of Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana) in materially different circumstances. Since the underlying admission process stood validly concluded, there was no basis to direct fresh rounds of counselling, and the appeal was dismissed with no order as to costs.
Lesson Learnt
A litigant who delays raising a grievance while a related case is being decided by the Supreme Court cannot later invoke "court delay" as an excuse to reopen a settled admission process: courts protect the vigilant, not those who wait to see how other similar cases turn out before acting.