Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 1: Division Bench of High Court comprising Chief Justice MM Kumar and Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur has admitted the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by a social activist Ashok Sharma challenging Rule 17 of Reservations Rules framed under Reservation Act of the State and issued notices to the respondents.
After hearing Advocate Kuldip Singh Parihar for the PIL, the DB observed, “Deputy Secretary (Legal) J&K Board of Professional Entrance Examination has filed the affidavit, explaining that there was no increase in the reserved category seats. The explanation is discernable from the last few lines, which show that alteration of one seat was made because of reserved category candidate who figured higher in merit— above the reserved category ratio and was figuring in the open category”.
“He opted for the specialty of MD Medicine which was available to the reserved category. As a result, he surrendered his option, which was available to him in his capacity as open merit-category candidate. Thus, there was increase of one seat only in the reserved category seats and no two seats as asserted by PIL petitioner”, the DB said.
“The assertion of BOPEE has been controverted by PIL petitioner by filing an affidavit. It has been projected that in fact, by adopting the course of granting option to open merit-category candidate to some specialty belonging to reserved category, reservation is exceeded. In other words, the open merit category candidate is able to stake his claim to a specialty meant for reserved category without replacing the claim made by the reserved category candidate”, the DB said.
“According to Advocate KS Parihar, this will result in exceeding the limit of the quota fixed for reserved category in each of specialty”, the DB said, adding “we are, prima facie, of the view that any interpretation of Rule 17 which results in inflating quota for reserved category needs to be discouraged. This is the net result of various judgments of the Supreme Court and in fact, a Division Bench of this court in its judgment rendered in the case of J&K High Court has concluded that number of seats available in the open category and reserved category has to remain the same as per the fixed ratio”.
“That interpretation has to be maintained by BOPEE and any deviation from the interpretation given by the Division Bench to Rule 17 will not be acceptable”, the DB said and directed BOPEE to work out the rules in accordance with the view expressed in the judgment.
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