Reserved Candidate With Higher Merit Must Be Migrated To General Category: Rajasthan High Court Reiterates

The Rajasthan High Court has reiterated that a reserved category candidate who had not availed of any relaxation except for fee relaxation, and had secured higher marks than the last selected candidate of the General Category, was mandatorily required to be migrated to the general category.

The bench of Justice Farjand Ali stated that underlying principle behind such decision is that the General Category is a category of open merit and any candidate, irrespective of community is entitled to compete therein.

A petition was filed by a candidate, for a government post, who belonged to the BC, WE category. Since the only seat reserved for this category was already filled by another candidate, the petitioner was put in the reserve list, and she was the only candidate from BC,WE category in that list.

For the BC, WE category, the cut off marks were 61. However, for the General category, the cut off marks were 58 i.e. lower than that of the reserved category.

It was the case of the petitioner that since the selected candidate in the reserved category secured higher marks than the cut off marks for General category, instead of being given the reserved seat, she should have been migrated to the general category. Consequently, the seat that got vacant in the reserved category should be allocated to the petitioner who was the only reserved category candidate in the reserve list.

After hearing the contentions, the Court highlighted the settled position in the Supreme Court case of Deepa E.V. v Union of India in which it was held that a reserved category candidate who had secured higher marks that the General category cut-off, and had not taken benefit of reservation except fee concession, could not be denied selection in the general category.

This was reiterated in Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited & Ors. Vs. Sandeep Choudhary & Ors. in which the Supreme Court held that merit migration was mandatory once the reserved category candidates secured higher marks than the general category cut-off and did not avail any relaxations relating to age, qualification or other substantive criteria.

In this background, the Court observed that administrative lapses could not defeat the constitutional equality, and the same principle shall govern the present case too.

It was held that once the final merit position was clear to the effect that the reserved category candidate had secured higher marks than the general women candidate, the State was duty bound to place her in the General woman category, and failure to do so was illegal and vitiated the selection process.

“…respondents erred in not migrating/moving Ms. Deepti Kalal to the General Woman category. The petitioner, being the only candidate in the reserve list for BC, WE category and having secured the next highest marks, was entitled to be considered for appointment against the BC, WE vacancy.”

Accordingly, the writ petition was allowed, and the State was directed to treat the consequential vacancy in the reserved category as available to be filled from the reserve list.

Title: Kirti Chowdhary v the State of Rajasthan & Ors.

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Raj) 406

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