Munmun Kaur
Published On: January 20, 2022 at 16:46 IST
The Supreme Court on January 20, pronounced its detailed Order on the NEET PG Counseling Case.
Earlier, on January 07, the Special Bench of Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice AS Bopanna had upheld the Centre’s decision to implement 27 percent Other Backward Classes (OBC) Reservation in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), All India Quota (AIQ) seats in State Government medical institutions.
The Order came on a Petition challenging Reservation for OBC and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) introduced by the Central government in the AIQ seats in State Government medical institutions.
Although through its short Order on January 07, the Supreme Court had upheld the 27 percent OBC quota, the detailed reasons for the same were not given.
The Supreme Court, on Thursday, said that the Reservation for backward classes is not at odds with merit but it furthers distributive impact. Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna, in the Order, said that the Centre was not required to seek the permission of the Supreme Court before granting reservation in AIQ seats, and thus their decision was correct and the said Reservations were Constitutionally Valid.
The Bench also said that merit should be socially contextualized and cannot be reduced to narrow definitions of performance in open competitive exams.
However, the validity of criteria for determining the EWS quota will be heard at length by the Apex Court later in March this year.