The Madras High Court on Wednesday reserved its orders on a contempt of court petition filed by DMK demanding 50% reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in medical seats offered by State government run medical colleges to the All India Quota every year.
Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice P.D. Audikesavalu decided to pronounce their orders on the issue on August 25. The decision was taken after senior counsel P. Wilson representing the DMK and Additional Solicitor General K.M. Nataraj representing the Centre concluded their arguments.
On July 27, 2020 the High Court had ruled that OB’s were entitled to reservations in AIQ seats. It also ordered implementation of its orders from the academic year 2021-22. However, when there were no signs of strict compliance of the court orders, the DMK moved the present contempt plea this year.
On July 19, the first Division Bench led by Chief Justice Banerjee observed that it would be contumacious to not provide reservation for OBCs from 2021-22. Thereafter, the Centre decided to provide 27% reservation to OBCs as per the Central policy and also to implement 10% reservation for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) of society.
Taking exception to such a decision by the Centre, Mr. Wilson insisted that the State reservation policy of 50% for OBCs, 18% for Scheduled Castes and 1% for Scheduled Tribes must be implemented in AIQ since the seats belong to State-run colleges. He also questioned the propriety of implementing EWS reservation without any court order.
On the other hand, Mr. Nataraj contended that reservation for EWS had Constitutional backing and that he need not justify that reservation in the present case which was confined only to OBCs. He argued that the question of contempt does not arise since Centre had provided 27% reservation for OBCs as per the Central policy. He further pointed out that the total communal reservation could not exceed 50% in AIQ and hence the Centre had decided to provide 27% reservation to OBCs, 15% to SCs and 7.5% to STs as per the Central policy.