Sports Quota Reservation Horizontal! HC junks MBBS Aspirant's plea

Amarvati: Observing that the reservation for MBBS admission under the sports quota was horizontal and that the seats under the quota would have to be distributed among all social communities, the Andhra Pradesh High Court recently dismissed a plea by a candidate belonging to the Open Category who sought admission to the MBBS course through the sports quota.

Unable to secure a sports quota seat, the petitioner had challenged the allocation of seats under this quota, arguing that it was a separate category of reservation immune from consideration of social status.

However, the HC division bench of Chief Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur and Justice R. Raghunandan Rao noted that the A.P. Unaided Non-Minority Professional Institutions (Regulations of Admissions into Under Graduate Medical and Dental Professional Courses) Rules, which were amended in July 2007, "make it clear that the reservation granted under sports quota, would be a horizontal reservation under which, the seats available under sports quota would have to be distributed among all the social communities."

"This amendment was challenged before the erstwhile High court of Andhra Pradesh in P. Srividya vs. State of Andhra Pradesh. A division of the erstwhile High Court of Andhra Pradesh, after considering the challenge to this amendment, in terms of the grounds raised by the learned counsel for the petitioner herein, had upheld the amendment. The division bench, following the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court, in “Indira Sawhney vs. Union of India1992 Supp (3) SCC 217, had also held that there was a necessity to treat the special reservations, mentioned above, as horizontal reservations," the bench further noted.

Accordingly, the Court observed, "In those circumstances, the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner that distribution of sports quota seats among various social groups is not permissible, has to be rejected."

The petitioner had appeared in the National Eligibility-Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2021 examination for admission to Under Graduate Medical Courses and secured Rank No. 654334. Consequently, she applied for MBBS admission under the Sports Quota relying on her performance in Handball. However, she was unable to secure a seat through the sports category. Following this, she got admitted to a management quota seat at the NRI Medical College.

Being aggrieved by the allotment of seats, the petitioner took up the matter before the High Court, arguing that various persons who had achieved lesser priority than her in the sports category, had been allotted medical seats in various colleges.

Referring to an instance in this regard, the petitioner argued that even though she was placed at priority No. 92 in the final merit list for sports category and another candidate was placed at priority no. 146, the latter was allotted the sports quota seat available at NRI Medical College. This, the petitioner argued, was arbitrary and unreasonable. She argued that such allotment of seats was clearly not in accordance with the merit list prepared for the sports category.

It was argued by the petitioner that sports quota was a separate category of reservation, which was immune from consideration of social status and allotting seats in sports quota according to the social status of community of the person concerned would constitute reservation within reservation, which was impermissible.

On the other hand, the University argued that the sports category reservation is to be treated as horizontal reservation under which seats are allocated within the sports category to persons on the basis of the social status of their community.

The University contended that since the petitioner belonged to the open category, the priority was given to the other candidate who belonged to a BC-A (Backward Class) category. It was also argued that there was no seat available to a sports person belonging to OC (Open) category in the NRI Medical college. 

Meanwhile, it was argued by the college that various Government Orders provided for sub-categorization of sports quota as the reservation under the said quota was only a horizontal reservation and not a vertical reservation which could be treated as a separate silo for allotment of seats.

While considering the matter, the Court observed that the A.P. Un-aided Non-Minority Professional Institutions (Regulations of Admissions into Under Graduate Medical and Dental Professional Courses) Rules 2007 A.P. Unaided Non-Minority Professional Institutions (Regulations of Admissions into Under Graduate Medical and Dental Professional Courses) Rules were issued on April 30, 2007 for regulating admission of students into UG Medical and Dental Professional Courses. The criteria for admission, allotment of seats, procedure for filling up the competent authority seats as well as management seats were prescribed by these rules.

These Rules, after setting out the seats reserved for SC, ST and BC communities, also stipulated reservation for sub-categories, noted the Court. It further observed that thereafter G.O.Ms.No.231 dated 11.07.2007 was issued for amending the above Rules and the amended rules clarified that the reservation granted under sports quota, would be a horizontal reservation under which, the seats available under sports quota would have to be distributed among all the social communities.

"The petitioner is in the OC group, whereas the 18th respondent is in the BC-A group to whom the sports quota seat had been allotted in respondent No.21-college. In that view of the matter, the petitioner, even if she was eligible otherwise, would not have been granted a seat in respondent No.21-college...The claim of the petitioner can also be viewed from another angle. In view of the fact that the sports quota seats have to be distributed between the social communities, the petitioner would have a case if she could point to any other sports person in the open category, who was allotted a seat even though he/she was less meritorious than the petitioner in the sports quota. The petitioner does not make out any such case," noted the Court, as it found no merit in the plea and accordingly dismissed it.

To view the order, click on the link below:

https://medicaldialogues.in/pdf_upload/ap-hc-282562.pdf

Also Read:AP HC Favours Merit-Based MBBS Admissions on Plea Challenging Special Stray Round for Newly Added Seats