Meritorious SC/ST, OBC, EWS candidates entitled to be considered in horizontal quota: SC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has said a member of SC/ST or OBC and EWS category is entitled to be considered in horizontal quota seats if his or her marks are more than the cut-off marks fixed for general category candidates.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan directed the Department of Medical Education of the Madhya Pradesh government to grant admission to seven candidates belonging to SC, OBC and EWS categories in MBBS Unreserved Government Schools (UR-GS) quota seats in academic sessions of 2024-25. The court said, "The methodology adopted by the respondents in compartmentalising the different categories in the horizontal reservation and restricting the migration of the meritorious reserved category candidates to the unreserved seats is unsustainable."

Appellants contended in the UR-GS seats, the persons who are much less meritorious than them, and who have secured as low as 214, 150 marks, have got admission, whereas the appellants, who are much more meritorious than the UR-GS candidates have been deprived of the admission.

They also said due to erroneous application of the policy, as many as 77 seats classified as UR-GS, were not filled from the GS quota and had to be released to the open pool of candidates.

The appellants also relied upon the Supreme Court's judgment in the case of Saurav Yadav and Others v State of Uttar Pradesh and Others (2021), contending even in case of horizontal reservation, the candidates from the reserved categories like SC/ST/OBC, if they are entitled on their merit in the GS quota, will have to be admitted against the GS quota (UR seats). 

They also said the meritorious students of reserved category who have studied in government schools must be allotted MBBS seats of unreserved category government school quota before they are released to the open category. 

The Madhya Pradesh government, however, said it was not possible to shift the category of vertical reservation like the SC/ST/OBC/EWS to the horizontal category of UR-GS.

The bench, however, said it was well settled that a candidate belonging to any of the vertical reservation categories who based on his merit is entitled to be selected in the open or general category, will be selected against the general category and his selection would not be counted against the quota reserved for such vertical reservation categories.

"This principle would also apply to the cases of horizontal reservation," the bench said, noting the meritorious candidates belonging to SC/ST/OBC, who on their merit, were entitled to be selected against the UR-GS quota, have been denied the seats against the open seats in the GS quota.

The court set aside the Madhya Pradesh High Court's judgment which dismissed writ petitions challenging the decision of the Department of Medical Education of not allotting MBBS Unreserved (UR) Category Government School (GS) quota seats to the meritorious reserved candidates, who had passed from the Government Schools.