'Merit's Definition Cannot Be Reduced To Performance In Competitive Exams' : Supreme Court Upholds OBC Reservation In NEET-AIQ

The Supreme Court on Thursday pronounced the detailed order giving reasons for its January 7 direction to allow the commencement of counselling process for NEET-PG and NEET-UG for 2021-22 admissions on the basis of the existing 27% quota for Other Backward Classes (OBC) and 10% reservation for Economically Weaker Sections(EWS) in the All India Quota.The Court has passed a detailed judgment to uphold the constitutionality of 27% OBC quota and has passed another order giving reasons for not staying the existing EWS crtiria for the ongoing admissions.To approve 27% OBC reservation in All India Quota, a bench comprising Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice AS Bopanna provided the following reasons : (i) Articles 15(4) and 15 (5) are not an exception to Article 15 (1), which itself sets out the principle of substantive equality (including the recognition of existing inequalities). Thus, Articles 15 (4) and 15 (5) become a restatement of a particular facet of the rule of substantive equality that has been set out in Article 15 (1); (ii) Merit cannot be reduced to narrow definitions of performance in an open competitive examination which only provides formal equality of opportunity. Competitive examinations assess basic current competency to allocate educational resources but are not reflective of excellence, capabilities and potential of an individual which are also shaped by lived experiences, subsequent training and individual character. Crucially, open competitive examinations do not reflect the social, economic and cultural advantage that accrues to certain classes and contributes to their success in such examinations; (iii) High scores in an examination are not a proxy for merit. Merit should be socially contextualized and reconceptualized as an instrument that advances social goods like equality that we as a society value. In such a context, reservation is not at odds with merit but furthers its distributive consequences; (iv) Articles 15 (4) and 15 (5) employ group identification as a method through which substantive equality can be achieved. This may lead to an incongruity where certain individual members of an identified group that is being given reservation may not be backward or individuals belonging to the non-identified group may share certain characteristics of backwardness with members of an identified group. The individual difference may be a result of privilege, fortune, or circumstances but it cannot be used to negate the role of reservation in remedying the structural disadvantage that certain groups suffer; (v) The scheme of AIQ was devised to allot seats in State-run medical and dental institutions in which students from across the country could compete. The observations in Pradeep Jain(judgment) that the AIQ seats must be filled by merit, must be read limited to merit vis-à-vis residence eservation. This Court in Pradeep Jain (supra) did not hold that reservation in AIQ seats is impermissible; (vi) The Union of India filed an application before this Court in Abhay Nath (judgment) placing the policy decision of the Government to provide reservation for the SC and ST categories in the AIQ seats since until then in view of the confusion on demarcation of seat matrix, there was no clarity on whether reservations could be provided in the AIQ seats. The Union Government was not required to seek the permission of this Court before providing reservation in AIQ seats. Therefore, providing reservation in the AIQ seats is a policy decision of the Government, which will be subject to the contours of judicial review similar to every reservation policy; (vii) It was clarified in Dinesh Kumar (II) (judgment) that the total seats demarcated for AIQ shall be determined without excluding reservation as was earlier directed by Pradeep Jain (supra) and clarified in Dinesh Kumar (I). However, this Court in Buddhi Prakash Sharma (judgment) had erroneously construed the clarification in Dinesh Kumar (II) to mean that there should be no reservation in AIQ seats. Therefore, the order in Abhay Nath (supra) was only clarificatory in view of the observations in Buddhi Prakash Sharma (supra); and (viii) Clause 11 of the information bulletin specifies that the reservation applicable to NEET-PG would be notified by the counselling authority before the beginning of the counselling process. Therefore, the candidates while applying for NEET-PG are not provided any information on the distribution of seat matrix. Such information is provided by the counselling authority only before the counselling session is to begin. It thus cannot be argued that the rules of the game were set when the registration for the examination closed.After the judgment was pronounced today morning, Senior Advocate P Wilson, who represented Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party which had opposed the petitions, told Justice Chandrachud "it is a...

'Merit's Definition Cannot Be Reduced To Performance In Competitive Exams' : Supreme Court Upholds OBC Reservation In NEET-AIQ

Mehal Jain

'Reservation is not at odds with merit but furthers the distributive impact of social justice', the Court said.

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