Echoing the aspirations of thousands of medical students across the country, the Supreme Court on Tuesday reiterated its message that super specialities in medical education should be “unreserved, open and free” to usher in the best of talents.
In a 58-page judgment, a Bench of Justice Dipak Misra and P.C. Pant urged the States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to drop its policy of reserving seats for super speciality medical courses to only students domiciled there.
The verdict came on a batch of petitions challenging the domicile policy followed by both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on the strength of a Presidential order, namely, Andhra Pradesh Educational Institutions (Regulations and Admissions) order of 1974 promulgated under Article 371(D) of the Constitution which gave special privileges of education and employment to the local people of Andhra Pradesh.
In his judgment for the Bench, Justice Misra wrote that any hope for a progressive change as far as reservation policy is concerned had remained merely a hope.
“The fond hope has remained in the sphere of hope though there has been a progressive change. The said privilege remains unchanged, as if to compete with eternity,” Justice Misra wrote.
It asked the Andhra and Telangana authorities to objectively assess the policy to see whether it does justice to the aspirations of students and approach the issue keeping national interest as paramount.
Referring to several of its own judicial precedents, the apex court quoted. “In Dr. Pradeep Jain case this Court has observed that in Super Specialities there should really be no reservation. This is so in the general interest of the country and for improving the standard of higher education and thereby improving the quality of available medical services to the people of India”.
The petitions filed said how students from other States, namely, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal, Bihar and Haryana, allow candidates from all over India to appear in the entrance examination.
It complained that States like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu confine the eligibility only to the candidates having domicile in their respective States.
The judgment records the frustration of the students, saying how they found that the situation in the three States created “clear disparity, and further a state of inequality”.
The students complained that these three States deprive opportunity to students from pther parts of the country like Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram, Tripura, Sikkim and Uttarakhand which do not have government institutes offering super-speciality courses of their own.
They said the right to equality is indivisible across the country, and any disparity is a violation of the fundamental rights.
This judgment only deals with the two States of Andhra and Telangana. The bench observed that it would consider Tamil Nadu's case separately in a hearing scheduled for November 4, 2015.
