Hyderabad: In a significant verdict regarding admissions into medical courses in states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday set aside Para 5 (ii) of G.O. Rt. No. 550 which enables filling of medical seats in merit category vacated by a student in the reserved category. The court made it clear that online admission system does not allow sliding of seats once it gets allotted as per the preference of candidates.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan and Justice V. Ramasubramanian, while allowing a batch of petitions challenging Para 5 (ii) of G.O. Rt. No. 550 dated July 30, 2001, observed that if Para 5(ii) is allowed to operate, percentage of reservation will go up beyond the cap of 50 per cent prescribed by the Constitution Bench of Supreme Court in Indra Sawhney v. Union of India.
The Bench found that the fourth step envisaged in the GO actually creates a reservation within unreserved quota, solely on the basis of fact that a Meritorious Reserved Candidate (MRC) came to occupy that seat for a few seconds before opting to slide down, thereby offending Article 14 of the Constitution.
The Bench noted after the application of para 5 (ii) of the GO, the number of seats that came to be occupied by merit candidates got reduced to 456 (386 + 70) and the number of seats that got allotted to candidates belonging to Backward Classes increased to 540 in the colleges under the jurisdiction of the NTR University of Health Sciences in the academic year 2017-18.
The Bench also noted that latter part of para 5(ii) of the GO apparently increased the total number of seats for Backward Classes, by around 298 in the state of Telangana.
Reminding that all the universities have switched over to online admissions, the Bench said that earlier, manual system allowed MRC for sliding the seat of his first choice when he found that a less meritorious reserved candidate has been allotted to the college of his first choice due to the benefit of reservation.
The Bench said that during online counselling, where candidates exercise web options, allotment of seats , sliding down and filling up of vacated seats do not happen physically. “All the steps happen simultaneously in computer systems in which software is programmed in such a manner,” it said.
The Bench pointed out that the system is programmed in such a manner that an MRC , according to his first choice of preference, is accommodated directly into the college or course of his choice, either under the open category or under the reserved category to which he belongs. Therefore, sliding itself does not take place.
The Bench made it clears that “Since software programming follows a logic, unlike humans, the system presumes a notional allotment, a notional sliding and a notional filling up of a vacated seat.
As a consequence, only one allotment takes place to MRC and that allotment directly takes him to the college of his preference. When that happens, no seat gets vacated under the open category as no one has left his impression of birth mark upon the seat.”
