Bombay HC upholds Maharashtra government’s scrapping of regional reservation in medical admissions

In a landmark order, the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court (HC) has held that the Amended Rules-2020 implemented by the state on September 7, which did away

In a landmark order, the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court (HC) has held that the Amended Rules-2020 implemented by the state on September 7, which did away with regional reservations in Maharashtra for admissions to undergraduate courses in medical studies, is valid. The court observed that after the introduction of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), which is based on the concept of one nation, one examination, and aims at providing admissions to students on merit only, regional reservations were a contradiction, and hence the state decision is valid.

The court observed that after the introduction of NEET, which aims at providing admissions based on merit, it made sense to scrap the regional reservation. (HT PHOTO)

The bench also noted that while regional reservations were the need as per a Supreme Court (SC) judgement in 1986, with development and advancement, regional reservations would be counter-productive.

A division bench of justice SV Gangapurwala and justice Shrikant Kulkarni, while hearing petitions filed by eight students aspiring to pursue medical education, was informed that the September 9 decision of the government to set aside regional reservations was not valid as it was announced after the admission process started, and should be set aside.

The regional reservation condition was introduced by the previous government in 2016 wherein medical colleges in a particular region had to reserve seats in the ratio of 70:30, wherein 70% of seats would be reserved for students from the region, while the remaining 30% could be open for admission to students from other parts of the state and outside the state as well. The condition was introduced mainly to benefit students from the Marathwada and Vidarbha region.

However, senior advocate and special counsel for the state Anil Anturkar opposed the claims of the petitioners and submitted that the amendment was introduced before this year’s NEET exams, which is the only standard accepted by all authorities for admission to medical and dental courses. Anturkar further submitted that the state’s decisions in 2016 and 2020 are based on the situation existing at the relevant time.

He also submitted that a similar decision for government colleges was taken earlier and the same was being implemented for private colleges.

Intervenors in the petition concurred with Anturkar’s submissions and said that the 70:30 rule was detrimental to the backward students from the Marathwada and Vidarbha region.

After hearing the submissions, the court observed that there was no perversity in the state’s decision. “The Amendment Rules-2020 do not appear to be against constitutional mandate nor [do they] override the stipulation under any statute. The purpose of Amendment Rules-2020 was to end regional merit and the state merit is given priority. The person getting better marks would get precedence in admission to the medical courses. Such consideration does not appear to be deficient of intelligible object,” said justice Gangapurwala in the order.