SC agrees to hear plea over reservation of seats for kids of Armed Forces personnel
SC agrees to hear plea over reservation of seats for kids of Armed Forces personnel
New Delhi, The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a plea against an order upholding the reservation of one per cent seats in medical courses for children of ex-servicemen and Armed Forces personnel.
A bench of Justices B R Gavai and Augustine George Masih said, "By way of ad interim order, the position as was existing prior to the dismissal of the writ petitions before the High Court shall continue to operate, until further orders."
The bench issued notice and sought responses from the state of Telangana, Centre and others on the plea within four weeks.
The petitioners challenged the Telangana High Court order on the ground that the benefit of reservation of one per cent seats was confined only to the children of personnel of Army, Navy and Air Force and it excluded the wards of Central Armed Police Force personnel.
The high court passed the order on two petitions challenging the constitutionality of the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh/Telangana Unaided Non-minority Professional Institutions Rules, 2007, and the Telangana Medical and Dental Colleges Admission Rules, 2017.
One of the pleas in the high court was filed by a petitioner, whose father had rendered services in the Border Security Force .
The petitioner had appeared in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test 2024.
The plea before the high court said that BSF, Central Industrial Security Force, Central Reserve Police Force, Indo-Tibetan Border Police and Sashastra Seema Bal were part of the CF.
It said the rules confining the benefit of reservation of one per cent seats to children of the personnel of the Army, Navy and Air Force were "discriminatory and bad in law".
"The interesting conundrum in the instant case is whether the petitioners/children of BSF personnel are sailing in the same boat. In other words, whether the children of CF personnel can be treated at par with the children of Army, Navy and Air Force," the high court said.
Admittedly, the high court said, the personnel engaged by the Army, Navy and Air Force were governed by different set of Acts/Rules and their service conditions were different than the service conditions of CF personnel.
The high court said "no doubt" in certain courses in the state of Telangana, the government apart from the children of the Army, Navy and Air Force personnel, provided reservation to the children of CF personnel as well.
However, it added, "Merely because in some courses reservation is extended to both categories, neither equality between the two is established nor any enforceable right is created in favour of the present petitioners."
While dismissing the pleas, the high court held the rules not to be unconstitutional or infringing the equality clause enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
