Madras High Court quashes 85% quota for State Board aspirants in medical admissions

   The Madras High Court today quashed the Tamil Nadu state government order imposing an 85 per cent quota in medical admissions for State syllabus students, leaving only 15 percent of the seats for students from CBSE and other boards. The judgment was delivered by Justice K Ravichandrababu.

The Dispute

A Government order passed on June 22 this year, via Clause IV (19) of the Prospectus of MBBS/BDS admission 2017-18, had sought to introduce the above reservation criteria in addition to the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), mandated by the Medical Council of India.

In effect, medical admissions to government medical colleges and government quota seats in self-financing private medical colleges would have been based on two merit lists. The move was strongly opposed by several students from the CBSE background as well as the Medical Council of India, who had appeared as petitioners.

The Counsel involved

The petitioners were represented by learned senior counsels Nalini Chidamaram, PS Raman, ARL Sundaresan and Om Prakash, and advocates, Hema Muralikrishnan, Gowthaman, Bharatha Charavarthy, K Suresh, Rahul Balaji, Kumaresan, and Manisundar Gopal.

Advocate General R Muthukumaraswamy, assisted by Special Government Pleaders TN Rajagopalan and P Kumar, appeared on behalf of the state government. VP Raman, PR Gopinathan and Nagarajan represented the Medical Council of India, Dr. MGR University and CBSE respectively.

Contentious Issues

The grounds for opposition by the petitioners were two-fold:

Firstly, the state government, by way of an executive order, cannot override the legislation occupying the field and orders passed by the Apex Court to that effect.

Section 10 D of the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 lays down NEET as the uniform entrance examination. The same had been notified in the MCI notification dated December 21, 2010, which has been upheld by the Supreme Court in case of Sankalp Charitable Trust and Another v. Union of India and Others.

The Tamil Nadu Admission to MBBS/BDS Course Bill, 2017, which seeks to undo the effect of the NEET requirement, is yet to receive the assent of the President. The state is not entitled to make such executive order under Article 162 of the Constitution, as such executive action must co-exist with current legislation.

Secondly, the impugned government order violates Article 14 of the Constitution by discriminating between students of the State Board and those of the Central Board, especially, when the qualifying examination to the admission to MBBS/BDS course viz., NEET is common to all. It was argued that there is no rational nexus between the order and its object. Given that there are already reservations in place for SC/ST and OBC students, such reservation within reservation is bad.

The respondents countered by holding that Article 162 of the Constitution vested sufficient authority on the state government to protect their policy interests. The policy inclination of the state is well espoused in the 2017 Tamil Nadu Medical Admissions Bill, which was unanimously passed by the state legislature and awaiting Presidential assent. Thereby, the state government was entitled to protect students under the state board syllabus.

The distinct syllabus, methodology and pattern of examination followed by CBSE students were more relevant to the NEET examinations, thereby placing state syllabus students at an unfair disadvantage. There was no Constitutional violation in preventing the treatment of unequals as equals.

The Verdict

The Court accepted the contentions of the petitioners on both issues. Rejecting the contention that the state government had the authority to override the effect of the NEET criterion by way of an Executive Order, it was unequivocally held,

“No doubt, the State Government from the beginning has opposed to the common entrance test viz., NEET. But the fact remains that they failed to succeed before the Apex Court, when the said issue was considered and decided in Sankalp Charitable Trust case.

Therefore, now the State Government has passed a recent Bill viz., Tamil Nadu Admission to MBBS and BDS Courses Bill, 2017 to get rid of the NEET. However, as stated supra, the said Bill has not transformed itself into a Legislation for want of Presidential Assent.

Therefore, the State Government is left with no other option except to accept and make the selection only in accordance with the merits of the marks obtained in NEET examination and not otherwise.”

As regards the question of violation of Article 14, the Court agreed with the reasoning put forward by the petitioner, observing that,

“When the qualifying examination is the common entrance test, namely NEET, irrespective of the fact whether the student is from State Board or Central Board, the Government thereafter is not entitled to make two different classifications by way of the impugned reservation among the students who have taken part in the NEET examination.

In my considered view, once they take NEET examination, all such students are to be treated equal and therefore, the Government is not justified in projecting their case as though they are doing level playing field among the unequals.”

The Court also chided the state government for attempting to engage in institutional reservation, thereby meting out “step-motherly treatment” to CBSE students in the state, without performing its duty to raise the competence of state syllabus students:

“It is not in dispute that the syllabus of NEET was prepared much earlier and made public as early as in the year 2010-11. It is seen that the syllabus is prepared by Medical Council of India and not by CBSE.

Therefore, it is for the State Government to take all steps to equip the students of State Board to compete with the other students from the other Boards, by providing all facilities and conducting Coaching classes etc., all over the State.

Without doing so meticulously, now the Government cannot take shelter under the guise of policy decision and issue the impugned G.O., thereby, undoubtedly, diluting the merits for admission.”

On these grounds, the Court ruled that the impugned order is bad in law and thus, cannot be sustained.

Read the full judgment below.