OBC Reservation in NEET: Supreme Court issues notice to Centre, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana government

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has issued notices to the Centre, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana government directing them to file their stands on the PIL accusing them ignoring OBC (Other Backward Classes) reservation in National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, NEET.

The PIL (Public Interest Litigation) was filed by Justice V Eswaraiah, Chairman of National Backward Classes Federation, also a former chairman of the National BC Commission.

In his petition, he alleged that the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana government are displaying ignorance on the OBC reservation in the state's medical admissions process and thereby urged the Supreme Court to ensure the implementation of 27% quota for OBC candidates in the national pool MBBS, BDS and PG medical admissions.

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"While the Centre had completely ignored the OBC reservations in the national pool, states like AP and Telangana have remained tightlipped on the matter," he accused the governments while talking to TOI last month.

During the recent hearing on the case, Justice Eswaraiah pointed out that SC/ST reservation is being implemented as per the stipulated rules, but OBC reservation is not being taken into account at all.

He notified the apex court that though it is mandatory for the authorities to follow the rule of reservation while filling the seats under this national pool, they have been ignoring the OBC reservations completely. "They are following the rule of reservation in respect of SCs and STs but are skipping OBC reservations though they too were brought into force by an Act of Parliament," he said.

For MBBS and BDS, 15 % of the total seats available in the country are put in the national pool by the respective state governments. For PG medical seats and certain PG diploma courses, the national pool was raised to 50 per cent. "It is in the case of filling these nationally pooled seats, the OBC reservations are given a miss," Justice Eswaraiah said.

He brought the court's attention to the loss of OBC seats sustained last year. He presented before the court that in 2018-19 alone OBC have lost 1028 MBBS, BDS seats and 1911 PG medicine seats due to non-implementation of OBC reservations in the national pool.

After going the submissions by the petitioner, Justice Eswaraiah; the bench of honourable Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Sanjiv Khanna issued notices to the Union Secretaries of Health, Higher Education, Social Justice, the Directorate General of Health Sciences that governs NEET, the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and sought their counters on the matter; reports TOI.