The ruling underscores a State legislature’s competence to provide a source of entry for in-service candidates. | Photo Credit: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA
The Supreme Court on Wednesday confirmed Tamil Nadu’s decision to reserve 50% super-specialty seats for in-service candidates in government medical colleges in the State.
The judgment is significant as it underscored a State legislature’s competence to provide a separate channel or a source of entry or reservation for in-service candidates in super-specialty medical seats too.
A Bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao and B.R. Gavai drew strength from a Constitution Bench judgment in the Tamil Nadu Medical Officers Association case, which empowered State legislatures to provide reservation for in-service candidates in admissions to postgraduate degree/diploma medical courses.
Justice Gavai, who authored the verdict, applied the logic used by the Constitution Bench to extend to the State legislature the power to provide reservation for in-service candidates in super-specialty courses in government medical colleges.
“The State of Tamil Nadu would be at liberty to continue the counselling for the academic year 2021-22 by taking into consideration the reservation provided by it as per the said Government Order [of November 7, 2020],” the court said.
Tamil Nadu, during the hearings, justified its policy of 50% reservation for in-service doctors, saying “they are not mercenaries who want to get a superspeciality course to go abroad and practise. They have been serving the common man in the State”.
Senior advocate C.S. Vaidyanathan, for Tamil Nadu, and the State’s Additional Advocate-General, Amit Anand Tiwari, had distinguished between ‘reservation’ and a ‘separate source of entry’ provided for the doctors already serving under the State.
“This is not a reservation. These are people who are already serving in government hospitals... This is a separate source of filling vacancies,” Mr. Vaidyanathan had argued.
Mr. Tiwari had argued that the Centre, too, provided a separate source of entry for in-service doctors, calling it “sponsorship”.
The judgment came on a series of petitions filed by aspirants challenging the constitutional validity of the November 7, 2020 government order.
Additional Solicitor-General Aishwarya Bhati, for the Union, had opposed the reservation policy, arguing it was against national interest.
In Chennai, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin said the Supreme Court’s order was an answer to the BJP government at the Centre that had failed to respect social justice. “It is an outstanding judgment. Social justice will triumph in the fight against NEET, which has deprived rural students of medical education. The DMK government will continue to wage a legal battle for it,” he said in a statement.
