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Synopsis

The Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed a plea challenging the Centre's decision to give higher priority to wards of ex-servicemen than those of serving personnel in admission to various educational institutions under army quota of five per cent.

The court was dealing with a petition filed by the husband of a serving lieutenant colonel in the Indian Army. He moved the High Court seeking to quash the order of May 21, 2018 of the government of India giving the categories of priority within the reservation provided in the Army quota of 5 per cent for admission to various colleges.

The bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Neena Bansal Krishna said that no arbitrariness or mala fide was brought forth in the policy which provided nine categories of "Priority" for wards and wives of former and serving personnel for providing reservation in medical/professional/non-professional courses throughout the country.

The court said that there was no ground to interfere and it was a policy decision of the Centre to define how the reservation in different categories shall be availed.

The division bench said, “The classification has been done and the wards of serving personnel have been included even though in Priority VIII only to ensure that the benefit of 5% reservation on the whole is availed ensures to the benefit to the wards of Armed Forces Personnel”.

“The Horizontal utilization of reservation quota is essentially determined by the Government Order dated 21.05.2018. No arbitrariness or mala fide has been brought forth in the said policy. We do not find any ground to interfere with the Government Order dated 21.05.2018 or to reshuffle the Priority categories as provided therein”, the court added.

Through the present plea, the petitioner sought directions to the Central government and the Secretary of Higher Education to treat/include priority no VIII above priority no VI or in alternative to consider both priority nos VI and VIII at the same podium for the admissions in the forthcoming Academic Year 2023-24.

The wife of the petitioner is serving as Lieutenant Colonel in the Indian Army and is currently posted at New Delhi. The son of the petitioner is a student of Class XII in Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram, who is aspiring to become a Software Engineer to pursue a Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) course for which the qualifying examination is the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) (JEE), and the said examination was scheduled to be conducted from April 6, 2023, to April 12, 2023.

While going through the various counselling/cut-off charts of various colleges of the government in the NCT of Delhi, the son of the petitioner found that the majority of reservation benefits were being taken away only by priority VI leaving no seat available for the remaining priorities, especially priority-VIII, in getting admission to various professional courses. Allegedly, the aforesaid anomaly was raised by the petitioner before the competent authority but no muscle was moved.

Thereafter, the petitioner made a representation on December 16, 2022 to the respondents, but no reply to the said representation was given. The petitioner claimed that while categorising the Priority-V and the Priority-VII, both wards of Ex-servicemen and of Serving Personnel had been put in the same category; however, no intelligible differentia had been applied while categorising the Priority-VI and the Priority-VIII. In fact, it was a biased act to give deliberate benefit to the wards of Ex-servicemen over the Serving Personnel, the petitioner claimed.

The grievance of the petitioner was that while considering the reservation in the prescribed categories, the wards of Ex-Servicemen who fell in Priority VI practically “take away the reserved categories” despite having scored better ranking, leaving very few vacancy seats for the wards of serving personnel to get the benefit of reservations.

Counsel for the petitioner asserted that since serving personnel continues his or her service and performs excellently well and gives his or her cent per cent to the service of the nation, therefore, the wards of serving personnel should be given higher priority at all times as they have to face untimely shifting due to posting, lack of amenities due to the posting in remote areas, lack of care, risk factors in the sensitive areas etc. while no such hardships are being faced by the wards of retired personnel.

The court noted that the petitioner had not challenged the reservation of 5 per cent provided to the wards of Armed Forces Personnel but was aggrieved by the wards of ex-servicemen being placed in Priority VI while wards of serving personnel being placed in Priority VIII in the revised list of Priorities.

“According to the petitioner there is no intelligible differentia for placing the wards of serving personnel in a category below the wards of ex-servicemen on the grounds that while ex-servicemen have not only retired from their services and are no longer serving the nation, but at the same time they are getting their pensions as well as due benefits which are commensurate to those which are being enjoyed by the serving personnel”, it noted.

Conclusively, taking the submission made by both the parties into account, court dismissed the petition along with pending applications.

Case Title: Viney Chaudhary v. UOI & Anr.