NEET-PG Counselling : Supreme Court Reserves Order In EWS/OBC Case [LIVE UPDATES Of Day 2]

ASG Nataraj referring to judgements to argue that reservation can be introduced through executive instructions.

Solicitor General says he will place on record certain judgments on prospective application. SG concludes.

Additional Solicitor General KM Natarak now argues.

Solicitor General In medical, the courses are also time bound.  Any change at this stage would delay.

Justice Chandrachud :  Okay Mr SG, I get it why the committee said about next year.

Justice Chandrachud : Mr.Mehta, we think we have given you substantial time. How much time you need to wrap up? We need to give the order too.

Solicitor General says that if the criteria is excluded this year, people who did not apply earlier may want to apply, and it will have a cascading effect.

Justice Chandrachud : Mr. Solicitor, one other thing we wanted to ask you, the Pandey committee, except for retaining the agricultural land criterion, has recommended doing away with the residential asset criteria because it is burdensome. But they said do away from next year. If it is burdensome, why not exclude it this year?

SG to answer the question posed by Justice Chandrachud refers to a part of the report .

SG: Income here is family income. If there are 3 members in the fam earning 3 lakhs per year their income would be 9 lakhs and they would not come under EWS.

SG: This would be more severe if there is 5 lakhs limit. What they say is if they don't want under exclusion they also don't want over inclusion.

Judges concurring amongst themselves.

Justice Chandachud : Up to 5 lakhs, there is no income tax liability effectively. But in this 5-8 lakh limit, should we defer to the committee?

Justice Chandrachud : It appears this committee has attempted to justify EWS criteria post-facto.

Justice Chandrachud: From the first affidavit you say you decided to follow the creamy layer criterion. Now in the Pandey committee report, you say EWS is a stricter criteria. One area where we need to explain is, today's income tax limit is 2.5 lakhs. Up to 5 lakhs, you don't have to pay any tax because you get a rebate. So no income tax effectively till 5 lakhs.