Restricting Migration Of Meritorious Reserved Category Candidates To Unreserved Seats Is Illegal: Supreme Court
The Supreme Court has observed that compartmentalising different categories in the horizontal reservation and restricting the migration of the meritorious reserved category candidates to the unreserved seats is “totally unsustainable.”
The students (appellants), who had participated in the NEET (UG) Examination conducted in 2023, challenged the Madhya Pradesh High Court's decision that denied them admission under the UR-GS quota, despite their higher merit scores. The appellants had challenged the decision of the Department of Medical Education (respondent) for not allotting MBBS Unreserved (UR) Category Government School (GS) quota seats to the meritorious reserved candidates, who had passed from the Government Schools.
A Bench of Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice K.V. Viswanathan observed, “The methodology adopted by the respondents in compartmentalizing the different categories in the horizontal reservation and restricting the migration of the meritorious reserved category candidates to the unreserved seats is totally unsustainable. In view of the law laid down by this Court, the meritorious candidates belonging to SC/ST/OBC, who on their own merit, were entitled to be selected against the UR-GS quota, have been denied the seats against the open seats in the GS quota.”
Sr. Advocate K Parameshwar appeared for the appellants, while AAG Nachiketa Joshi represented the respondents.
The Madhya Pradesh government in 2019 and 2023 notified an amendment to the Madhya Pradesh Education Admission Rules, 2018 (Rules) which introduced provisions for horizontal reservations in the admission process. The appellants had argued that these provisions were being misapplied, leading to a situation where less meritorious candidates were being admitted to MBBS courses under the UR-GS quota, while more deserving candidates from reserved categories were being overlooked.
The Supreme Court clarified that “it is a well-settled principle of law that a candidate belonging to any of the vertical reservation categories who on the basis of his own merit is entitled to be selected in the open or general category, will be selected against the general category and his selection would not be counted against the quota reserved for such vertical reservation categories.”
The Court held that the appellants were deprived of their legitimate claim of admission against the UR-GS category in the Academic Session 2023-24, and accordingly directed the respondents to admit the appellants in the next Academic Session 2024-25 against the UR-GS seats.
The Bench reiterated that horizontal as well as vertical reservation cannot be seen as rigid “slots”, where a candidate's merit, which otherwise entitles her or him to be shown in the open general category, is foreclosed.
Consequently, the Court quashed and set aside the impugned judgments passed by the High Court.
Accordingly, the Supreme Court allowed the appeal.
Cause Title: Ramnaresh @ Rinku Kushwah & Ors. v. State Of Madhya Pradesh & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2024 INSC 611)
Appearance:
Appellants: Sr. Advocate K Parameshwar; AOR Siddhartha Iyer and Avijit Mani Tripathi; Advocates Aditya Shanker Pandey, Rekha Bakshi, Yoothica Pallavi and Himanshu Sehrawat
Respondents: AAG Nachiketa Joshi; AOR Sunny Choudhary; Advocate Sharad Kumar Singhania, Abhimanyu Singh and Padmesh Mishra
