By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday allowed NEET-PG counselling for 2021-2022 based on the existing EWS and OBC reservation in the introduced by the Central government in the All-India Quota (AIQ) seats in State government medical institutions.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna upheld the constitutional validity of 27 per cent reservation for OBC and 10 per cent EWS for the NEET-UG and NEET-PG but said it would adjudicate the rationale of Rs 8 lakh income criteria for EWS category in March this year.
“We accept the recommendations of the (Ajay Bhushan) Pandey Committee that the EWS criteria notified in 2019 should be used for admissions to NEET-PG for the academic session 2021-22,” the bench said.
The bench made it clear that the counselling for NEET-UG and NEET-PG shall be conducted as per the government notification of July 29, 2021 stipulating 27 per cent OBC and 10 per cent EWS quotas in the All India Quota medical seats.
During the hearing, Central government had suggested that any revised criteria should be made applicable prospectively and the present counselling and admission should be held as per the existing criteria. The government also defended the OBC reservation as well as the Rs 8 lakh income criterion for determining EWS.
The protests by doctors also prompted the Centre to seek an early hearing in the matter due to which the case came to be listed this week.
During the hearing today, Senior Advocate Arvind Datar appearing for the petitioner, submitted that no reasons have been given by the Central government for rejecting the Sinho Commission report on economic reservation.
“Income criteria of Rs 8 lakh is arbitrary, assets criteria is even worse. 5 acres of agricultural land- keeping national limit of 5 acre is completely wrong. In Kerala it’s impossible to have 5 acres of land due to population density. There is no answer on what basis is this arrived at. (Values of) residential flats in Bombay, Chennai are so different,” Datar said.
Senior Advocate Anand Grover echoed same arguments and said, “Rs 8 lakh limit allows the creamy layer to come in too. The economically weaker section criteria of nutrition, landlessness, employment etc is completely ignored. The figure of 8L is arbitrary.”
Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave, representing resident doctors said that the decision on EWS criteria can wait and what needs to be done on priority is to ensure that counselling starts immediately.
“The counselling has to start immediately because 3rd year residents are about to pass out in 4 months. We’ll be left with 33 per cent of workforce. With 3rd wave coming we need doctors. The 8 lakh or 5 lakh limit can be looked at later,” he said.
“That’s a valid point you’re making, not only for the doctors but also the citizens,” the Bench remarked.
