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Synopsis

The Supreme Court has said that the objective of sports quota is not to accommodate academic merit, but promotion of sports in the institution, the university, and ultimately, in the country, as it declared eligibility criterion of securing not less than 75% marks in the qualifying examination in an engineering course as "unwarranted and discriminatory".

A bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Aravind Kumar allowed an appeal filed by Dev Gupta and others against the Punjab and Haryana High Court's order dismissing their plea against imposition of a minimum 75% aggregate marks as an eligibility condition (in the qualifying examination) for enabling a candidate to claim admission in engineering courses under the 2% sports quota at PEC University of Technology at Chandigarh.

"The imposition of the minimum 75% eligibility condition does not subserve the object of introducing the sports quota, but is, rather destructive of it; the criterion, in that sense subverted the object and is discriminatory; it therefore, falls afoul of the equality clause, in Article 14 of the Constitution," the bench said.

At the same time, the state or educational institution can insist upon a minimum eligibility condition. That is not to say that such condition would necessarily and mandatorily have to be what is applicable to general (or open category) candidates. The latter kind of criteria would tend to exclude meritorious sportspersons, and place the less (academically) meritorious sportspersons, at adisadvantageous position, because they satisfy the open category candidates’ criterion of higher academic merit, the bench pointed out.

The court said requiring all candidates to possess a fulfil a certain eligibility standard- such as the one, prescribed in the sports policy, of 2023 or the qualifying marks prescribed by the concerned Board, or university, to pass in the concerned subjects is entirely different from the prescription of a uniform standard, far higher than the such a minimum threshold. 

The bench said, "It is quite possible that a sportsperson, who has and continues to represent the country in international Olympic sports, and gained such excellence as to have bagged a medal or two, in say, wrestling, would be altogether excluded in the eventuality of a wrestler, of the same category (but who has never reached the national level) securing 80% marks in the qualifying examination. It exactly this consequence which this court had warned would be the “unequal application” of a uniform criteria, a wooden equality without regard to the inherent differences, which Article 14 frowns upon, and forbids."

Referring to the sports policy of 2023 governing admissions, the bench said, it was evolved with a careful eye to detail to ensure that performance in sport, rather than academic merit, was the chosen criterion to be applied for filling the 2% sports quota. 

"Another reason which leads this court to conclude that discrimination has resulted, is because in respect of sports too, the state has lowered the criterion for those enjoying vertical classification, under Article 15 (4)," it said.

In such event, it was open to the state to lower the eligibility criterion, for sports quota, to other candidates too; the dissimilarity in treatment is therefore, egregious. Moreover, the record indicates that except for the academic years 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2023-24, for all the previous years, the eligibility prescribed was lower; indeed, for 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23, the criterion was “10+2 Pass”, the bench added.

The court directed the University administration to complete the process of filling remaining vacant seats in the sports quota within two weeks, without disturbing admission of candidates selected in other categories.

 

Case Title: Dev Gupta Vs. PEC University of Technology & Ors.