The Kerala High Court has declared unconstitutional the University Grants Commissions‘s (UGC) National Eligibility Test criterion that the top 15 per cent of candidates from each the four reserved categories on the merit list will be declared qualified for eligibility for the post of assistant professors.
The court passed the judgment while allowing writ petitions filed by the Nair Service Society (NSS) and a general merit candidate.
As per the UGC notification regarding the procedure and criteria for declaration of results, the merit list of candidates who secured minimum marks would be prepared subject wise as also reserved category wise (other backward classes, disabled persons, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) based on the aggregate marks secured by the candidates in all the three papers and the top 15 per cent candidates in all the categories will be declared NET qualified for eligibility for assistant professors.
According to the petitioners, in the light of the lower minimum marks prescribed for the candidates belonging to the reserved categories, the number of candidates securing minimum marks in NET from the reserved categories was more than the number of general category candidates securing minimum marks. Therefore, when the top 15 per cent of candidates from each category, subject wise, were qualified in NET, the qualified candidates in NET from the reserved categories far outnumbered the general category qualified candidates.
The court observed that if the impugned criteria were adopted, the number of NET qualified general category candidates would be skeletal. The court noted that in the last selection process, the number of candidates qualified from the reserved categories for some subjects went up to 91.8 per cent and the average was 62.17 per cent.
The court said a criterion which was likely to eliminate more than 50 per cent of the candidates from general category from acquiring the NET qualification cannot be said to be a valid one, especially when they, or at least a substantial number among them, were more meritorious than the candidates qualified from the reserved categories.
The court made clear that this judgment would not affect the result of the NET already held. The court observed that the UGC was free to evolve a criterion which would not affect the sufficiency of meritorious candidates from the general category for selection to all open vacancies in future NETs.
