Quota For Govt Shool Students In Medical Admissions Justified As They Are A "Socially & Educationally Backward Class" : Madras High Court

The Madras High Court bench of Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice Bharatha Chakaravarthy had on Thursday upheld the validity of The Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Courses in Medicine, Dentistry, Indian Medicine and Homeopathy on preferential basis to students of Government Schools Act, 2020, which provided for 7.5% preference/reservation to the students of government schools in admission to undergraduate medical/dental courses. The main contentions in the writ petitions were that: With the prescription of an additional 7.5% of reservation, already, the excess reservation of 69% is further increased and now only 18% is available for Open Category students and therefore, the same is unconstitutional.When a common entrance test is provided for all the students, giving preference to the students of Government Schools, amounts to discrimination and therefore violates Article 14 of the Constitution of IndiaGovernment School students cannot be classified as either socially and educationally Backward Class under Article 15(4) of the Constitution of India or economically weaker section under Article 15(6) of the Constitution of India and therefore, giving preference to the Government Schools' students is violative of Article 15 of the Constitution of India.Taking into consideration the already existing scheme of reservation, the petitioners were preparing hard for getting into medical courses, but, that legitimate expectation is undone suddenly by the impugned legislation and therefore, the new policy violates the Doctrine of Legitimate Expectation. Background The reason for enactment of the act was based upon a report by a commission headed by Hon'ble Justice P. Kalaiyarasan, Retired Judge of High Court of Madras who identified a cognitive gap created by socio economic factors. The act was issued in exercise of the executive powers of the state government under Article 162 of the Constitution and was pending assent of the Governor. However, considering the urgent need to make admission for the Academic Year 2020-2021, the Government Order was issued. The act received assent of the Governor and upon coming into force, the Government order stood superseded/nullified. Submission of Petitioner At present, under the National Medical Commission Act, 2019, 15% of the seats are filled up under All India Quota by the Central Government through the Common Merit List and the balance of 85% of the seats fall to the State Government quota, by preparing a merit list by following reservation policies of the States. Already, the reservation in the State of Tamil Nadu stands at 69% i.e., Schedule Tribes-1%, Scheduled Castes -18%, Most Backward Class-20% and Backward Class-30%. In this, there also is horizontal reservation for Arunthathiyar community within the S.C quota and for Backward Class(Muslims) within the Backward Class quota. Mr.Sriram Panchu, Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners contented that the State had passed the enactment manifestly violating Article 14, 15, 21 of the Constitution. He contented that reservation is given for those who suffer discrimination by birth, by being woman and for socially disadvantaged groups such as Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe etc., or physical handicap by birth or by an accident. In the present situation, reservation is given for the inability of the government to provide quality education. Thus, the reservation does not satisfy the requirement of Doctrine of Proportionality nor has any rational nexus. He further submitted that reservation for government school students would be beyond the 50% benchmark which is illegal and would amount to fraud on Constitution. For this he also relied on the decision of the Apex Court in M.R Balaji and Ors v. State of Mysore and Ors and Dr. Jaishri Laxmanrao Patil v. Chief Minister and Ors. He also relied on the judgment in Suneel Jatley and Ors v. State of Haryana and Ors, where it was held that the classification between rural and urban areas was struck down as unconstitutional. Submission of respondents Mr.Kapil Sibal, Senior Counsel, leading the arguments on behalf of the State of Tamil Nadu, submitted that 7.5% reservation is for the fact that the government school students are a socially and educationally backward class and therefore reservation is justified under Article 15(4) and 15(5) of the Constitution. He also submitted that reservation is no longer an exception to Article 14 or under Article 15(1), but is a facet thereof and therefore, the present enactment has to be decided on that premise. He also submitted that a narrow definition of merit based only on the results of the examination without consideration of giving weightage backward factors is opposed to the concept of equality. He further submitted that there is an obligation on the State to adopt a standard of proportional...

Quota For Govt Shool Students In Medical Admissions Justified As They Are A "Socially & Educationally Backward Class" : Madras High Court

Upasana Sajeev

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