NEET-PG Counselling : Supreme Court To Pronounce Orders In EWS/OBC Quota Case Tomorrow

The Supreme Court will pronounce orders tomorrow in the case related to OBC/EWS reservation in the NEET All India Quota. The counselling in NEET-PG admissions have got stalled due to the pendency of this case in the Supreme Court.A bench comprising Justice DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna had held extensive arguments in the case yesterday and today.For live-updates from today's hearing, refer here.Yesterday, Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta had made brief submissions, requesting the Court to allow the commencement of NEET-PG Counselling."Let us proceed with the counselling. Let that stage be over. Your lordships may start hearing the matter in the meanwhile and we can assist the court in great detail. We need doctors and their concerns are genuine. As a society, we cannot go into lengthy arguments now. We said we will revisit and the report has been submitted now", the Solicitor General submitted.The bench sought the response of petitioners to Centre's request to commence counselling.Senior Advocate Shyam Divan argued that introducing OBC/EWS reservations in July after the issuance of exam notification amounted to changing the rules of the game midway. His arguments were mainly two-fold - that the introduction of OBC/EWS quota amounted to changing the rules of the game in the middle; that the quota could not have been introduced through an executive instruction as the AIQ was carved out by the Court.He also argued that postgraduate admissions must be completely merit-based and reservations must be minimal. He referred to Supreme Court judgments which hold that there should be no reservation in super-speciality courses."In many courses, postgraduate is the end of the road, and that is the super-speciality in some departments. So the principle regarding super-speciality courses will apply to postgraduate courses too", he submitted.After that, Arvind Datar commenced arguments regarding the arbitrariness of EWS criteria.Background The case relates to the challenge against the validity of the Centre's decision to introduce OBC/EWS reservation in the All India Quota of NEET admissions. The dispute has its origin in the notification issued by the Central Government on July 29, which introduced 27% reservation for Other Backward Classes(OBCs) and 10% reservation for Economically Weaker Sections(EWS) in the All India Quota(AIQ) for undergraduate and postgraduate medical / dental courses (MBBS / MD / MS / Diploma / BDS / MDS) from the current academic year 2021-22 onwards. During the hearing, the Supreme Court raised doubts regarding the reasonableness of the Rupees 8 lakh gross annual income limit adopted by the Centre to determine EWS cut-off. The bench also passed a detailed order recording its doubts over the reasonableness of the EWS limit.On October 25, the Central Government told the Supreme Court that the NEET counselling will not commence while the EWS-OBC issue was pending adjudication.On November 25, the Centre agreed to revisit the EWS criteria in the light of the Court's concerns and decided to formulate a Committee to examine the issue. The Centre sought for weeks time to complete the exercise. Accordingly, the Supreme Court had then adjourned the case to January 6, 2022.Last week, the Centre filed an affidavit saying that the Committee has recommended the retention of the existing EWS criteria for the ongoing admissions and that it has accepted the said recommendation.In the Report on Review of the Criteria for EWS Reservation, the Committee opined that disturbing the existing system which is ongoing since 2019 at the fag end would create more complications than expected both for the beneficiaries as well as for the authorities. In this regard, the Committee has recommended introducing the new criteria from the next academic year."Under these circumstances, it is completely unadvisable and impractical to apply the new criteria (which are being recommended in this report) and change the goal post in the midst of the ongoing processes resulting in inevitable delay and avoidable complications. When the existing system is ongoing from 2019, no serious prejudice would be caused if it continues for this year as well. Changing the criteria midway is also bound to result in spate Of litigations In various courts across the country by the people/persons whose eligibility would change suddenly. The Committee, therefore, after analysing the pros and cons on this issue and after giving serious consideration, recommends that the existing and on- going criteria in every on-going process where EWS reservation is available, be continued and the criteria recommended in this Report may be made applicable from next advertisement / admission cycle," Committee had said the report in this regards.Based on the recommendations, the Central Government has agreed to accept the Committee's recommendation of applying the...

NEET-PG Counselling : Supreme Court To Pronounce Orders In EWS/OBC Quota Case Tomorrow

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