Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Jan 20: The Supreme Court said on Thursday that the 27 percent quota for Other Backward Classes (OBC) in National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) All India Quota (AIQ) seats in State government medical institutions is not at odds with merit, but rather enhances distributive impact.
Competitive tests do not reflect economic social advantage that is conferred to specific classes, according to a bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna.
“Articles 15(4) and 15(5) are facets of substantive equality. Competitive exam do not reflect economic social advantage which is accrued to some classes. Merit should be socially contextualised. Reservation is not at odds with merit but furthers it’s distributive impact.”
The ruling came in response to a petition contesting the Central government’s reservation of AIQ seats in State government medical institutions for OBC and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS).
On January 7, the Court affirmed the 27 percent quota for OBCs in AIQ seats in a brief order.
It had not, however, provided detailed reasons for the same, which it did today via the present order.
The AIQ mechanism was created to assign seats in State-run medical institutes, according to the Court’s judgement today.
“Centre was not required to seek permission of this court before granting reservation in AIQ seats and thus their decision was correct. We hold that reservations for OBC in AIQ for undergraduate and post graduate courses is constitutionally valid.”
The Court, on the other hand, stated that it will have to examine the legitimacy of the criteria for calculating EWS quotas in March of this year.
“For EWS, we have said that argument of petitioners in validity of EWS was not limited to its share in AIQ but also on the basis criteria. Thus, it needs to be heard in detail.”
Meanwhile, admissions to NEET postgraduate (PG) courses for the year 2021 would be based on the existing OBC and EWS reservations of 27% and 10%, respectively.
