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Synopsis

The Supreme Court has on August 20, 2024 said a candidate belonging to any of the vertical reservation categories who on the basis of his own merit is entitled to be selected in the open or general category, will be selected against the general category and his selection would not be counted against the quota reserved for such vertical reservation categories. 

A bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Vishwanathan allowed a plea by Ramnaresh alias Rinku Kushwah and others against Madhya Pradesh High Court's judgment, which denied them relief.

"Undisputedly, the appellants who were meritorious and who could have been admitted against the UR-GS (Government Schools) category were denied admission on account of an erroneous application of the methodology in applying the horizontal and vertical reservation. It is also not in dispute that many of the students, who secured much less marks than the appellants, have been admitted against the UR-GS seats," the bench said.

This, the bench found, is totally in contravention of the law laid down by this Court in the cases of Saurav Yadav and Sadhana Singh Dangi.

The court directed the respondents to admit the appellants in the next Academic Session 2024-25 against the UR-GS seats, as it had already on August 12, 2024, directed seven seats to be kept vacant in the event they succeed.

The High Court had rejected the appellant's challenge to decision of the Department of Medical Education of not allotting MBBS Unreserved (UR) Category Government School (GS) quota seats in 2023 to the meritorious reserved candidates, who had passed from the Government Schools. 

They also sought a direction to the Department to allot the MBBS seats of Unreserved Category Government School quota to the appellants. 

In the instant case, out of 89 unreserved seats for Government School students, 77 were sent to the open category.

They contended the meritorious students of reserved category who have studied in Government Schools must be allotted MBBS seats of unreserved category government school quota before they are released to the open category. 

Relying upon Saurav Yadav and Others v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Others (2021), the appellants contended even in case of horizontal reservation, the candidates from the reserved categories like SC/ST/OBC, if they are entitled on their own merit in the GS quota, will have to be admitted against the GS quota (UR seats). 

Senior advocate K Parameshwar on their behalf submitted that, on account of erroneous application of policy, an anomalous situation has arisen wherein, in the UR-GS seats, the persons who are much less meritorious than the appellants, and who have secured as low as 214, 150 marks, have got admission, whereas the appellants, who are much more meritorious than the UR-GS candidates have been deprived the admission.

He also submitted the cut-off for UR-GS was 291, OBC-GS was 465, SC-GS was 314 and EWS-GS was 428. Due to erroneous application of the policy, as many as 77 seats classified as UR-GS, were not filled from the GS quota and had to be released to the open pool of candidates. 

In fact, the State, realising its mistake, has now carried out an amendment on July 2, 2024 thereby intending to apply horizontal reservation correctly for this academic year in accordance with the judgment and decision of this Court in the case of Saurav Yadav, he said.

Madhya Pradesh's Additional Advocate General Nachiketa Joshi claimed since it was a case of horizontal reservation, it was not possible to shift the category of vertical reservation like the SC/ST/OBC/EWS to the horizontal category of UR-GS.

The bench, however, said, "It is a well-settled principle of law that a candidate belonging to any of the vertical reservation categories who on the basis of his own merit is entitled to be selected in the open or general category, will be selected against the general category and his selection would not be counted against the quota reserved for such vertical reservation categories."

Referring to Tamannaben Ashokbhai Desai v. Shital Amrutlal Nishar (2020), the bench noted the horizontal as well as the vertical reservation would not be seen as rigid “slots”, where a candidate's merit, which otherwise entitles her or him to be shown in the open general category, is foreclosed. 

The court opined the methodology adopted by the respondents in compartmentalising the different categories in the horizontal reservation and restricting the migration of the meritorious reserved category candidates to the unreserved seats is totally unsustainable. 

"In view of the law laid down by this court, the meritorious candidates belonging to SC/ST/OBC, who on their own merit, were entitled to be selected against the UR-GS quota, have been denied the seats against the open seats in the GS quota," the bench said.

In the present case, the cut-off for UR candidates was much less as compared to the cut-off for SC/ST/OBC/EWS candidates. As such, the respondents ought to have admitted the present appellants against the URGS categories, the bench said.

The court thus set aside the High Court's judgments and directed the respondents to admit the appellants in the next Academic Session i.e. 2024-25 for MBBS Course against the seats reserved for UR-GS category.