NEW DELHI, JAN 25: In a major ruling concerning professional medical institutions, the Supreme Court has ordered that the quota system chosen by the government for admission into superspeciality courses was legal and could not be equated with reservation provided in the Constitution.A three-judge Bench comprising Chief Justice A S Anand, Justice R C Lahoti and Justice Doraiswamy Raju in a recent judgement said the quota system provided by the government in the form of in-service and non-service candidates was tenable and could not be equated with "communal reservations" provided in the Constitution.The Bench said that "the government possesses the right and authority to decide from what sources the admissions in educational institutions or to particular disciplines and courses therein have to be made and that too in what proportion, is well established and by now a proposition well settled, too."It has been the consistent and authoritatively settled view of the apex court that at the super speciality level and even at the post-graduate level reservations in favour of those considered backward should be avoided as being not permissible, said Justice Raju.The Tamil Nadu government in February 1999 had envisaged reservations up to 50 per cent in favour of in-service candidates on merit basis and declared that remaining seats would be filled from open quota for post-graduate diploma, degree, MDS and Higher speciality courses for 1999-2000.When certain candidates challenged this in the Madras High Court, a single Judge allowed the appeals but a full bench reversed the judgement of the single Judge. Hence the appeal came before the Supreme Court.Upholding the state government's decision, the apex court said "reservation, even if it be claimed to be so in this case, for and in favour of in-service candidates, cannot be equated or treated on par with communal reservations envisaged under Article 15(4) and 16(4)."Justice Raju said the stipulations governing selection for admissions in these cases have got to be viewed and construed in the backdrop of events and legal position.The single Judge was certainly not right in equating the provisions made for allocation of seats in the form of fixation of quota in this case with usual form of communal reservations, he said."If the government can be said to possess the power to fix a quota for the exclusive benefit of `in-service' candidates, it is beyond comprehension of dictates of either reason or logic as to why the government cannot equally exclusively earmark the remaining seats in favour of `non-service' or private candidates," he said.Justice Raju said "though the prescription of a quota may involve a general sense of reservation in favour of the particular class or category in whose favour a quota is fixed, the concepts of reservations and fixation of quota drastically differ in their purport and content as well as the object."
