CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has rejected a plea to create additional seats for open category candidates in UG law courses in government law colleges to compensate the 69% reservation provided to other categories.Justice K Ravichandra Baabu dismissed the plea from S Aishwarya praying for a direction to State Higher Education department and TN Dr Ambedkar Law University to create additional seats and admit her in BA LLB (Hons) or BBA LLB (Hons) course for 2017-18, as not maintainable.
Petitioner had secured 476 marks out of 500 in the All India Senior School Certificate Examination and applied for law degree course in the university. Her rank was 198 in the order of merit and her community rank was fixed as 43. In the order of merit, she was within the first 57 candidates. “Had the university adopted 50% reservation for backward communities, SC/ST, I would have secured admission in the open category,” the petitioner claimed and added that in view of the orders passed by the apex court in Indra Sawhney vs Union of India, the communal reservation shall not exceed 50%.
However, Tamil Nadu is extending reservation up to 69%. When the issue was raised before the apex court, an order was passed directing State government to create additional seats. Similarly the law university should be directed to create additional seats, she argued. After perusing the apex court order, the judge pointed out that the order for creating more seats pertained to only that particular year and therefore cannot be made applicable to this case.