NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will on Friday pronounce its order on petitions challenging OBC and EWS reservations in all-India quota medical seats.
A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and A S Bopanna observed that it has to pronounce an order taking into account national interest and NEET counselling has to begin in view of the same.
The Central government suggested during the hearing that any revised criteria should be made applicable prospectively and the present counselling and admission should be held as per existing criteria.
The government defended OBC reservation as well as the `8 lakh income criterion for determining EWS.
During the hearing, senior advocate Arvind Datar appearing for a petitioner submitted that no reason has been given by the Central government for rejecting the Sinho Commission report on economic reservation.
“Income criteria of `8 lakh is arbitrary, assets criteria is even worse — five acres of agricultural land — is completely wrong. In Kerala, its impossible to have five acres due to population density. There is no answer on what basis is this arrived at. Values of residential flats in Mumbai, Chennai are so different.”
Senior advocate Anand Grover echoed that. “`8 lakh limit allows the creamy layer to come in too. The economically weaker section criteria of nutrition, landlessness, employment is completely ignored. This is arbitrary.”
Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, representing resident doctors who were staging protests until recently, said the decision on EWS criteria can wait and what needs to be done on priority is to ensure counselling immediately.
“Third year residents are about to pass out in four months. We’ll be left with 33% of workforce. With a third wave coming, we need doctors.” The bench said this was a valid point.