Authority Asking For OBC-NCL Certificate Should Keep Cut-Off Date Of Issuance In Line With Financial Year, Deviation Creates Confusion: Delhi HC

The Delhi High Court has observed that an authority asking for OBC-Non Creamy Layer (NCL) certificate should keep the cut-off date of its issuance in line with a particular financial year, as any deviation not only creates confusion and uncertainty but also deprives deserving candidates of reservation  benefit.

Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav said that the OBC-NCL certificate is issued by the competent authority on the basis of an applicant's income in the preceding three financial years and is valid for a particular financial year. Therefore, such a certificate is substantially correlated with a financial year rather than a random time-frame.

The court held that the mechanism for availing the benefit of reservation, which caters to the socially and educationally backward classes, should not only be easy and logical, but also non-cumbersome.

It said that if the process itself becomes an obstacle, it operates as an affront on the constitutional goal of ensuring equality of opportunity.

Observing that the concepts of direct and indirect discrimination, substantial and non-substantial equality etc. are increasingly finding place in the judicial discourse, the court said that the concept of reservations is not secluded from the layers of inequality and is, in fact, placed at the heart of the equality discourse.

“For the longest time, this concept was understood as antithetical to the concept of equality of opportunity. It took us long, as a society, to accept the fact that the reservation policy is itself a dimension of the concept of equality of opportunity and is not antithetical to it,” the court said.

Justice Kaurav made the observations while dealing with a plea moved by a candidate, Ravi Kumar, against cancellation of his admission in the Institution of National Importance Combined Entrance Test (INI-CET) January, 2024 session conducted by All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

Kumar's OBC-NCL category certificate was considered as invalid and he was told that his candidature would be considered only in the unreserved category as his cut off rank was under the unreserved merit list.

AIIMS informed Kumar that since the OBC-NCL certificates submitted by him were not issued within the timeline stipulated in the prospectus, he was not being considered under the OBC-NCL category for admission.

Granting relief to Kumar, the court confirmed an interim order passed on December 01 last year vide which he was granted admission, observing that the insistence of AIIMS upon the OBC-NCL certificate to have been issued between the cut-off date in its prospectus was arbitrary and did not have any rational nexus with the object sought to be achieved through the reservation of seats.

“The requirement of an OBC-NCL certificate is fundamentally different from a technical/academic qualification. While the former is mere evidence of what already exists, the latter refers to the acquisition of a qualification,” the court said.

It added that the candidature may not be cancelled solely on account of submission of the OBC-NCL certificate issued beyond the cut-off date, but within the extended time provided by AIIMS.

Furthermore, the court said that where a defective certificate is submitted by the candidate at an initial stage, submission of a corrected OBC-NCL certificate after the expiry of the cut- off date, where the advertisement explicitly provides for a cut-off date for such submission, shall not create a ground for disqualification by itself.

“…the cut-off date is to be construed in a manner favourable to the candidate, and not to nullify a fundamental right merely because the OBC-NCL certificate is being submitted post the cut-off date,” the court said as it directed AIIMS to accept Kumar's OBC-NCL certificate.

Counsel for Petitioner: Mr.Amitesh Kumar, Ms.Priti Kumari and Mr.Mrinal Kishor, Advocates

Counsel for Respondent: Mr. Anand Varma, Ms. Apoorva Pandey and Mr. Ayush Gupta, Advocates

Title: RAVI KUMAR v. ALL INDIA INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL SCIENCES

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Del) 131

Click Here To Read Order