seat row: A protester with an anti-reservation placard

New Delhi, Nov. 17: The Centre has told the Supreme Court it is not filling up vacant Other Backward Classes quota seats at its higher education institutions with OBC students newly eligible under its relaxed creamy layer quota.

The reason, the government said, is that it is not possible to admit students so late into the academic session that started four months ago.

The Supreme Court had earlier asked the Centre to fill up the vacant quota seats with general category students who had just missed out on the general seats.

But the government had responded by widening the pool of OBC candidates eligible for the quota. It did this by raising the “creamy layer” income ceiling from Rs 2.5 lakh a year to Rs 4.5 lakh (those above the creamy layer are excluded from reservation benefits).

The Centre then said it would fill the seats with the newly eligible OBC students under the reduced ceiling.

A general category student, who had hoped to gain admission in an IIT when the vacant quota seats were filled up, then petitioned the apex court saying the OBC income ceiling had been raised with “mala fide intention”.

Vishwarath Reddy said it had wrecked his chances of studying in the tech school of his choice although he had secured a good rank on the general category list of the IIT joint entrance exam and gone through counselling. The Centre, he said, had violated the apex court order.

Today, the Centre’s representative, solicitor-general G.E. Vahanvati, told the court that the vacant seats were not being filled up at all.

“Institutions such as the IITs are not giving admissions mid-course. That’s the only reason for not filling up these vacant OBC quota seats. Four months have passed since the academic year started. The IITs cannot accommodate anybody now,” Vahanvati said.

The IITs together have 20 vacant OBC quota seats.

A Constitution bench, headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, then asked Vahanvati to place the Centre’s stand on affidavit and adjourned the case.

The court had earlier asked the government to state if it had directed the central institutions to fill up the vacant seats with OBC candidates who had earlier been excluded by the Rs 2.5-lakh ceiling but later qualified under the revised ceiling.