State moves SC seeking 50% quota for BCs in medical courses

State moves SC seeking 50% quota for BCs in medical courses

Govt. accuses Centre of violating right to fair education

04/06/2020, KRISHNADAS RAJAGOPAL,NEW DELHI

The Tamil Nadu government on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court for a direction to the Centre to implement 50% reservation for Backward Classes in the State in All India quota seats for medical and dental courses.

The government accused the Centre of violating the “right of the people of Tamil Nadu to have a fair education” by not implementing the 50% quota for Backward Classes and Most Backward Classes for the All India Quota seats in medicine and dental science courses — both undergraduate and postgraduate levels — offered by institutions within Tamil Nadu.

“Though regulations stipulate that reservation is to be followed as per the reservation rules of the State where the medical college is situated, the medical counselling committee and the dental counselling committee, through which the admissions are done for the undergraduate and postgraduate medical courses, do not apply the 50% reservation for seats shared by Tamil Nadu in the All India quota as per 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,” the State’s petition, represented by Additional Advocate General Jayant Muthuraj and advocate Yogesh Kanna, said.

The petition said the action of the Centre and the Medical Council of India to fill up All India quota seats reserved for Backward Classes from the open category was unconstitutional.

“The Director General of Health Services is neither following 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 to provide 50% reservation for OBC candidates in All India Quota in undergraduate as well as postgraduate medical courses in Tamil Nadu nor providing 27% reservation for OBC candidates in All India Quota in undergraduate as well as postgraduate medical courses to other States,” the petition said.

It said the provisions of the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation and Admission) Act, 2006, to grant reservation of 27% to OBC candidates only in Central educational institutions is an anomaly as the institutions run by States and private parties would be treated as a “different class having a different rule of reservation”.