NEET Admissions: Supreme Court To Consider Legality Of Converting Unfilled Reservation Seats Of In-Service Quota To General Category

The bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli was considering the SLP against the Madhya Pradesh High Court's judgment dated April 11, 2022 ("impugned judgment").

Counsel appearing for the in-service candidate submitted that the Court had earlier declined to entertain the plea against the challenge to the same order having due regards to the stage of admission process. He further submitted that he was not pressing claim for the current academic year but for the entitlement on the ensuing year.

"Counsel states that in that case SLP was not entertained having due regards to the stage of the admission process. He does not press claim for the current year but for the entitlement on the ensuing year. Issue notice," the bench said in its order.

In the impugned judgment, the High Court had refused to entertain the writ petition preferred by "in- service candidates" wherein they, after relying on Rule 4 and Rule 14 of the Madhya Pradesh Chikitsa Shiksha Pravesh Niyam, 2018, had contended that unfilled seats of SC/ST/OBC/EWS category falling under 30% reserved compartment earmarked for 'in-service candidates' cannot be converted/shifted to the pool of open/direct category. In this regard they had further argued that the same could only be converted to the pool of open/direct category, before the same being first offered to general/unreserved category candidates within the same pool/compartment of 'in-service candidates'.

Rule 4 of the Admission Rules provides the methodology for filling the posts category wise and Rule 14 of the Admission Rules provides for reserving 30 posts for in-service candidates in Degree/PG Courses.

Before the High Court the candidates after referring to Rule 4 and Rule 14 of the Admission Rules submitted that the unfilled seats of reserved category in-service compartment cannot be shifted to open/direct category and that intermingling of seats between two compartments was impermissible. It was further argued that in the absence of any express enabling provision, the action of respondents in shifting the seats of one compartment (in-service category to another namely open/direct category) is bad-in-law and that the Admission Rules must be given purposive interpretation.

While refusing to grant the relief sought, the bench of Justices Sujoy Paul And Dwarka Dhish Bansal said,

"A minute reading of sub Rule (1) and (2) of Rule 14 leaves no room for any doubt that 'vacancies' means all the vacancies and not vacancies confined to 'in-service candidates'. Putting it differently, in sub Rule (2) of Rule 14 it is mentioned about vacancies of sub Rule (1) of Rule 14(1). At the cost of repetition, in our considered opinion, the vacancy of sub Rule (1) relates to the entire set of vacancies of all subjects available in Government and Private Medical Colleges as well as in Dental Hospitals. Thus, we are unable to persuade ourselves with the line of argument advanced by learned counsel for the petitioners."

The Appellant Dr. Shaline Agrawal & Ors. were represented through Advocates Mr. Siddharth R Gupta, Abhikalp P. Singh & Shivam Baghel, wherein the State has been directed to respond in 4 weeks.

Case Title: Shaline Agrawal v. The State Of Madhya Pradesh And Ors.| SLP(C) No. 7365/2022

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