SC sets aside Madras HC order on 10% EWS quota

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday said that the Union government does not need its approval to implement the 10% quota for students from EWS in the AIQ seats for postgraduate and undergraduate medical and dental courses, as indicated in a Madras High Court order.

Separately, since the government’s July 29 decision introducing the 10% EWS quota along with 27% reservation for OBCS in AIQ seats from the current academic session is already under challenge in the top court, it directed the Centre to file its response by October 6.

The Court order was passed in two separate proceedings. In one, the Union government was before the court challenging an August 18 order by the Madras High Court which stopped it from proceeding with the 10% EWS reservation without prior approval from the Supreme Court’s Constitutional Bench which is looking into the legal validity of the 103rd amendment passed by Parliament that provides reservations for those belonging to EWS.

In the other, the top court was considering four writ petitions questioning the constitutional validity of the July 29 order. One of the four also raised an interim prayer seeking a stay on the implementation of the order for this academic session.

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) KM Nataraj appearing for the Union government submitted that the Madras High Court order was wrong and should be set aside. On the second set of petitions challenging the July 29 notification, he sought time to file a reply. The bench of justices Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and BV Nagarathna allowed the Centre to respond to the four petitions by October 6 and agreed to consider on October 7 whether the proposed reservation must be implemented from this year onwards. Senior advocates Arvind Datar and Shyam Divan, representing doctors from across the country, claimed urgency as the results of NEET for UG and PG medical courses were expected soon.

On the Madras high court August 18 order, the bench felt that the direction to the Centre for seeking prior approval of the top court was “unnecessary”. The SC bench said, “We are of the view that the High Court has transgressed the limits of its contempt jurisdiction by entering into areas alien to the consideration before it on whether there was any breach of its direction of July 27, 2020….The direction issued by the High Court is alien to the exercise of contempt jurisdiction and is accordingly set aside.”