Supreme Court: In an appeal filed by a training institute (appellant) against the judgment and order of Madhya Pradesh High Court, wherein the appellant has challenged the Government policy dated 12-05-2022 (‘Admission Process and Guiding Principles 2022-2023’) on the ground that it was violative of Articles 14, 15 and 19(1)(g) of the Constitution, as the government had made 75% of the seats reserved for the residents of Madhya Pradesh which is not permissible in law, division bench of Dinesh Maheshwari and Sudhanshu Dhulia*, JJ. has held that though reservation in favour of residents is permissible, yet reservation to the extent of 75% of the total seats makes it a wholesale reservation, which has been held in Pradeep Jain v. Union of India, (1984) 3 SCC 654 to be unconstitutional and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India.
Further, the Court directed the State to reappreciate this entire aspect within two months from the date of this Judgment.
Background:
The appellant institute is facing difficulties in making admissions to its B.Ed. and M.Ed. courses, for which the appellant blames the “admission policy” or the “guidelines” of the State of MP and has challenged its constitutional validity.
As per Clause 1.5(a) of Admission Process and Guiding Principles 2022-2023, the total seats, 75% are reserved for “the residents of Madhya Pradesh” and the remaining 25% of the seats will only be available to the candidates who are from outside the State of Madhya Pradesh.
The figures given by appellant-institute of last two years, where the entire 25 percent seats allocated to the “outside” candidates have been filled, but almost all the 75 percent of seats, reserved for the residents of Madhya Pradesh, have remained unfilled. Therefore, the case of the appellant is that 75% of the seats which have been reserved for permanent residents of Madhya Pradesh, remain vacant due to the non-availability of residential candidates and as such the appellant may be permitted to fill these seats from outside candidates. This permission is, however, not given to the appellant.
The issue was, can the State Government reserve seats for “residents” of Madhya Pradesh? If yes, then whether as large as 75% of the total seats, can be reserved for the residents?
The Court said that this issue is not res integra, and in Pradeep Jain (supra), the Court had upheld such reservation, and said that this departure from the Rule of selection based on merit was justified on two grounds. Firstly, because of State interest, which would mean the expenditure incurred by the State in creating the educational infrastructure and the cost of its maintenance, and the second was the State’s claims to backwardness Further, prior to Pradeep Jain (supra), residence-based reservation was justified by this Court in the case of D.P. Joshi v. State of M.B., (1955) 1 SCR 1215
The Court said that the aforesaid cases were in the field of medical education, thus the justifiable factors of ‘State interest’ and the claim for backwardness of the State or any other factors which were relevant factors for residence reservations in medical education, would be equally relevant in other fields of education or other professional courses is still to be determined.
The Court said that the determination made in Pradeep Jain (supra) also goes 40 years back in history when the social and economic conditions of the country and of the specific regions in question weighed heavily in the minds of the Judges. So is also the state of medical education in the country as it existed at that time. The conditions as it exists today is not the same as was there 40 years earlier, when a decision in Pradeep Jain (supra) was taken.
The Bench said that we are not dealing with medical education, but with the validity of reservation based on residence requirement in a professional education course i.e., B.Ed, and opined that the ratio as laid down in Pradeep Jain (supra) would be applicable in this case as well but only to an extent, not fully. Therefore, the Court though followed the principles as laid down in Pradeep Jain (supra) but at the same time kept in mind the ground realities of the present day.
The Court noted that in Pradeep Jain (supra) it was held that residence-based reservation should not exceed 70 percent. The Court said that the large percentage of seats reserved for the residents of Madhya Pradesh which remains unfilled is not serving any purpose. Moreover, a wholesale reservation for residents of Madhya Pradesh would be violative of the law laid down in Pradeep Jain (supra)
The Court said that though the State is within its right to reserve seats for its own residents, while doing so, it must keep the ground realities in mind. Keeping 75% of the seats reserved for the residents of Madhya Pradesh is too high a percentage, and as the figures for the last two years indicate, it is also not serving any purpose. The number of seats from the next academic year shall, therefore, be fixed again for residents and non-residents
[Veena Vadini Teachers Training Institute v. State of M.P., 2023 SCC OnLine SC 535, decided on 28-04-2023]
*Judgment Authored by: Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia
