The Supreme Court has observed that the selection of a candidate belonging to a vertical reservation category, when selected in the open or general category on his own merit, would not be counted against the quota reserved for vertical reservation categories.
Allowing the petition filed by Ramnaresh alias Rinku Kushwah and others against a verdict passed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court, the Bench of Justice B R Gavai and Justice K V Vishwanathan observed on Tuesday that the meritorious appellants could have been admitted against the UR-GS (Government Schools) category.
However, they were denied admission on account of an erroneous application of the methodology in applying the horizontal and vertical reservation.
The Apex Court further noted that many of the students, who secured less marks than the appellants, had been admitted against the UR-GS seats.
This was totally in contravention with the law laid down by this Court in the cases of Saurav Yadav and Sadhana Singh Dangi.
The Bench directed the respondents to admit the appellants in the next Academic Session 2024-25 against the UR-GS seats. On August 12, 2024, the Apex Court had directed the respondents to keep seven seats vacant in the event the appellants succeeded.
The High Court rejected the appellant’s petition challenging the 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 government schools.
They also sought a direction to the Department to allot the MBBS seats of UR category GS 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 were released to the open category.
Relying upon Saurav Yadav and Others v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Others (2021), the appellants contended that even in case of horizontal reservation, the candidates from the reserved categories like SC/ST/OBC, if entitled on their own merit in the GS quota, would have to be admitted against the GS quota (UR seats).
Appearing for the appellants, Senior Advocate K Parameshwar submitted that on account of erroneous application of policy, an anomalous situation has arisen wherein, in the UR-GS seats, the persons who were much less meritorious than the appellants, and who secured as low as 214 and 150 marks, got admission.
Whereas the appellants, who were much more meritorious than the UR-GS candidates, were deprived of admission.
The cut-off for UR-GS was 291, OBC-GS was 465, SC-GS was 314 and EWS-GS was 428. Due to the 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, added the Senior Counsel.
He said realising its mistake, the state 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.
Madhya Pradesh 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.
However, the Bench said that it was a well-settled principle of law that a candidate belonging to any of the vertical reservation categories, who on his own merit was entitled to be selected in the open or general category, would 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 Apex Court noted that horizontal as well as vertical reservation would not be seen as rigid slots, where a candidate’s merit, which otherwise entitled her or him to be shown in the open general category, was foreclosed.
The Bench noted that 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 was totally unsustainable.
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, it added.
It 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 Apex Court set aside the High Court’s judgment 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.