SC takes up doctors’ PILs challenging quota move
Dhananjay.Mahapatra@timesgroup.com
New Delhi:07.09.2021
Five days before the National Eligibilitycum-Entrance Test (NEET) for all-India quota seats in undergraduate and postgraduate medical courses, the Supreme Court on Monday entertained two PILs filed by doctors from 15 states and union territories challenging the Centre’s decision to introduce 27% OBC and 10% economically weaker section (EWS) reservations for these seats.
A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud, Vikram Nath and Hima Kohli issued notices to the Centre, Medical Counselling Committee and National Board of Examination after hearing arguments made by senior advocates Arvind Datar and Vikas Singh, who appeared for the 27 doctors from Chhattisgarh, Goa, UP, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Chandigarh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Assam, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Punjab.
Recently, the Madras high court had upheld the 27% OBC reservation in all-India quota in government medical colleges across states but struck down the 10% EWS quota on the ground that it allowed the total reservation to go past the 50% ceiling. Datar said that these fresh writ petitions can be heard along with the petitions challenging the Madras HC order.
The petitioners said that in 2007, the Supreme Court had introduced a reservation of 15% for SCs and 7.5% for STs in the AIQ scheme.
With the introduction of the OBC and EWS quotas, the total reservation in AIQ seats would shore up to 59.5%, which would be in breach of the landmark Supreme Court judgment in Indra Sawhney case in which a constitution bench had capped the total reservation at 50% to prevent reverse discrimination of merit.
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