The ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court for the implementation of 50% OBC reservation for State-surrendered seats in the All India Quota for all undergraduate and postgraduate medical courses for the year 2020-2021.
The petition filed under Article 32 assailed the failure of the Centre to ensure that reservation was observed for OBCs in the category of State-captured seats in undergraduate, postgraduate and diploma medical seats of the All India Quota as per law.
The petition, filed by advocate Pallavi Sengupta and represented advocate Balaji Srinivasan, also sought ad interim relief to safeguard these seats pending disposal of the writ petition.
The petition said the inaction of the Centre completely undermined the most valuable and basic principle of the “rule of law”.
“There is no rational basis for not extending the benefit of 50% reservation for OBCs, as envisaged under the State laws of Tamil Nadu, to the State-captured seats in the All India Quota,” the petition said.
The petition argued that in the past academic years the OBCs were “grossly under-represented” in the All-India-Quota seats for undergraduate, diploma, PG diploma and postgraduate medical colleges across the country.
“It is a matter of fact that negligible numbers of OBC candidates were allocated any of the State-surrendered seats to the All India Quota in non-Central government medical institutions. This is in contradistinction to the reservation ethos in the State of Tamil Nadu and the current existing law [the Tamil Nadu Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Reservation of Seats in Educational Institutions and of appointments or posts in the Services under the State) Act, 1993] which provides 50% reservation for OBCs,” the petition pointed out.
The petition said in the 2019 postgraduate admissions 8,137 seats were in the All India Quota.
“Applying the central reservation quota of 27 % for OBCs as provided for under Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, which itself has not been implemented, the total number of seats reserved for OBCs under the All India Quota is 2,197. However, in reality, only 224 seats actually went to OBCs in non-Central Government medical colleges,” the petition submitted.
It argued that the Centre cannot be permitted to turn a blind eye when a significant number of meritorious OBC students are denied seats in the State-captured seats in the All India Quota.
