The Hindu : Kerala News : Apex court admits plea on reservation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 13, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Apex court admits plea on reservation

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI, AUG. 12 . The Supreme Court today admitted a special leave petition (SLP) filed by the Kerala Government challenging a Kerala High Court order passed in February 2003 quashing the 50 per cent reservation of seats in private medical colleges.

A three-Judge Bench had then issued notice to the medical institutions and later it was referred to a Constitution Bench. Today, a Bench comprising Justices Y.K. Sabharwal and D.M. Dharmadhikari directed that this petition be tagged along with another petition challenging the constitutional validity of a legislation passed by the State Government in July this year fixing the quota at 50:50 for Government and management seats.

The Bench, however, decided to hear after four weeks the issue raised in another SLP relating to the constitution of a committee by the State Government to probe into the allegation of colleges collecting capitation fees.

State's plea

In its SLP, the Kerala Government submitted that the High Court erred in interpreting Regulation 15 and 18 of the Kerala Unaided Professional Colleges (Admission of Students and Fixation of Fees) Regulations, 2002, by holding that the entire 50 per cent earmarked for the Government was meant to be filled on the basis of communal reservation applicable to backward classes. It said that the reduction of the reservation from 50 to 25 per cent had resulted in substituting the legislative wisdom and policy by the court's own views.

Local needs

The Government pointed out that in the 11-Judge Bench `minority status' judgment, the court had held that the prescription of the percentage of reservation had to be done according to the local needs and that different percentage could be fixed for minority unaided and non-minority unaided and professional colleges as well.

The SLP said that in Kerala around 35,000 candidates appeared for 900 medical seats and hence a policy decision was taken to allow additional self-financing colleges in the private sector to cater to the needs of meritorious students of the State. The SLP sought the quashing of the impugned judgment dated January 20, 2003 and the order passed on February 17, 2003, when the review petition was dismissed by the High Court.

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