The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Thursday directed the government to adjust Scheduled Caste (SC) MBBS students, who had been granted admission in four autonomous state medical colleges in an excess of 70 per cent quota against vacant seats elsewhere.
The court also stayed the single bench's directive for fresh counselling and asked the state to submit an affidavit within a week confirming its undertaking to follow the statutory 21 per cent SC quota from the next academic session.
It said the benefit of the interim order would cease if the affidavit were not filed.
A bench of Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Manjive Shukla passed the order while hearing a special appeal by the state government against the August 28 single bench judgment that had quashed the 70 per cent quota granted to SC candidates for MBBS admission in Ambedkar Nagar, Kannauj, Jalaun, and Saharanpur medical colleges and ordered fresh counselling.
Senior advocate J N Mathur, appearing as special counsel for the state, submitted that the state had earlier defended the 70 per cent quota before the single bench but was now following a law that caps the SC quota at 21 per cent. The law cited was the Uttar Pradesh Admission to Educational Institutions, Reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes Act, 2006.
Mathur argued that implementing fresh counselling as directed by the single bench would "throw the entire admission process haywire and create chaos." He said 82 SC category seats were vacant in other medical colleges where students admitted under the 70 per cent quota could be adjusted to "avoid imminent chaos and uncertainty." The bench considered Mathur's arguments and noted that writ petitioner Sabra Ahmad, an OBC candidate, had already secured admission at Lakhimpur Kheri Medical College in the first round of counselling, and the state had offered her a seat at Ambedkar Nagar Medical College.
The bench said vacant seats in the four medical colleges would be offered to OBC and unreserved candidates in the second round of counselling. It stayed the single bench's order for fresh counselling and fixed the next hearing for the second week of October.
The court also directed the state to file an affidavit on the next date detailing the steps taken to implement its interim directions.
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