NEET-PG : 'Let Us Proceed With Counselling', Centre To Supreme Court; Hearing To Continue Tomorrow

The Supreme Court on Wednesday started hearing the petitions challenging the Centre's decision to introduce OBC and EWS reservation in NEET All India Quota.The case was posted today after a request for an urgent hearing was made by the Central Government in view of the protests by resident doctors against the delay in the NEET-PG counselling. When the case was taken, the Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta apprised the bench of the affidavit filed by the Central Government on December 31 accepting the recommendations made an expert committee to retain the existing criteria for EWS reservation in the ongoing admissions.The Solicitor General requested the bench to allow the commencement of the counselling and suggested that the Court can hear the issues in the case in the meanwhile."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 however said that it will have to give an opportunity to the petitioners to address the latest affidavit filed by the Centre."Mr Solicitor, on November 25 when you told us that you will revisit the criteria, we had said that the matter will be heard on January 6. Now you have filed an affidavit. So we'll have to give the opportunity to Mr Datar & Mr Divan to respond in brief", Justice Chandrachud said. The judge added that the Solicitor can respond to their arguments tomorrow.While agreeing to the bench's suggestion, the Solicitor General added "We as a government would request to not accept any position whereby OBC or EWS whether pre or post the exercise is deprived of something that is legitimately due to them". The top law officer of the Union Government pointed out that the EWS criteria was notifying long back in Janaury 2019 and is being challenged only now.After that, the bench proceeded to hear the arguments of Senior Advocates Shyam Divan and Arvind Datar.Divan submitted that his clients were challenging the OBC/EWS quota in NEET-AIQ. 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.Divan argued :"My broad points are - the rules of the game cannot be changed in the middle, and that this reservation cannot be introduced through executive instructions as the All India Quota was carved out on the basis of judicial directions"."The last date for registration of NEET-PG was March 15, 2021. After that date, the rules of the game cannot be changed. The original exam was scheduled in April. It was postponed to September due to the pandemic. The notification for OBC/EWS quota was issued on July 29, 2021.The impugned notice dated July 29, which was published five months after the exam notification, has changed the rules of the game and have taken away over 2500 seats available for the general category. This ought not to be applied in the present admissions".Divan also submitted that Postgraduate admissions must be completely merit-based and reservation 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. He will continue arguments tomorrow. Refer to this page for live-updates from the hearing.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...

NEET-PG : 'Let Us Proceed With Counselling', Centre To Supreme Court; Hearing To Continue Tomorrow

Shruti Kakkar

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