Nishka Srinivas Veluvali
Published On: January 21, 2022 at 13:20 IST
The Supreme Court decided to examine the income criteria affixed for the EWS quotas in the month of March.
The current criteria set is Rs. 8 Lakhs as the family income from all the known and legal sources of income per annum and the Court is sceptical whether it being overinclusive.
The Bench of Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice AS Bopanna hearing the plea stated that, “The country still is fighting the pandemic and any further delay in the recruitment of doctors would impact the ability to manage it.”
The Court further on stated that, “We deem it necessary to allow the counselling session to begin with the existing criteria for the identification of the EWS category. Judicial propriety would not permit us to pass an interim order staying the criteria for determination of the EWS category”.
The Centre had established Pandey Committee after the Supreme Court suggested to set up the same to terminate any tweaks if present from the next academic year as the last – minute changes now will affect the medical admissions of UG and PG in India.
The Committee submitted to the Court, “The income limit used to exclude creamy layer from OBC quotas was a reasonable criterion to cap those who can avail of EWS quotas”.
The Committee opined that the lower – income limit would help to segregate the deserving candidates and to ignore the undeserving candidates from taking the advantage of the reservation, the asset criteria should be introduced in the place of lowering the income limit.
The Court has listed the matter in March.
