Supreme Court notice to TN govt. on medical seats

The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to Tamil Nadu on a writ petition from a student for a direction to increase the seats in the Government medical/dental colleges so as to enable the merit list of candidates coming within the cut off marks under 50 per cent of reservation to get admission for the academic year 2013-14.

A Bench of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Pinaki Chandra Ghose issued the notice, returnable on July 29, after hearing Senior Counsel K.M. Vijayan and Counsel G. Sivabalamurugan seeking a direction as was given last year so that the student could gain admission.

The petitioner R. Harshini said she came well within the cut off mark required for 50 per cent of the total seats available for admission to the medical stream in the Government College, as originally announced — including fresh additional seats sanctioned for the academic year 2013-2014, and the government seats available in private medical colleges.

She said “In the overall merit list, without taking into consideration the students who did not join the course due to various reasons and the number of seats available after surrender in the all-India quota, all the students who prima facie come within the quantitative restriction of 50 per cent are entitled to be admitted. The conduct of the State of Tamil Nadu having exceeded the quantitative restriction of 50 per cent reservation as decided by this court and the failure to identify the creamy layer among the backward classes in Tamil Nadu alone resulted in a Constitutional injury to the Citizens of State of Tamil Nadu against the Constitutional mandate, thereby denying a meritorious student to get admission to a professional college in accordance with the Constitution.”

She also said, “The Backward Class Commission, which was directed by the Supreme Court in 2010, while disposing of the earlier petition, to assess the justifiability of 69 per cent reservation on objective criteria, filed its report to the State government on July 8, 2011. Without any objective criteria, the Commission simply confirmed 69 per cent reservation on the basis of the Amba Shankar Commission Report made in the year 1985 without any objective criteria in terms of the Nagaraj Case which does not permit the power to exceed the quantitative restriction of 50 per cent reservation.”

She said during the academic year 2012-2013, the aggrieved candidates moved this court, which by an interim order directed the Tamil Nadu government to create extra seats to admit the affected students. For more than 17 years, with continuous and periodical interim orders granted by this court, extra seats were created for such of those forward community students who were affected by the 69 per cent reservations, she said, and sought a similar direction for this academic year.