TNN,
Mumbai Edition, 10th July 2008
Mumbai: Adding to the suspense over first
year junior college admissions in Maharashtra, the Bombay
high court in an interim order stayed the entire admission
process till further orders. Hearing a public interest litigation
challenging the state’s 70:30 formula for reservations
of seats, a division bench of Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar
and Justice A P Deshpande on Wednesday scheduled the case
for further hearing on July 14.
The court’s order means that while the colleges can
go ahead with declaring their lists, any further admissions
will be granted only after the final verdict. Late on Wednesday
evening, state education minister Vasant Purke sent a missive
to colleges asking them to strictly abide by the high court’s
orders.
During the hearing of the case earlier in the day, assistant
government pleader Jyoti Pawar was at pains to defend the
70:30 formula of districtwise reservations, even as the
judges observed that the scheme frustrates the entire merit
process. “What will happen to a student who stands
first, but there is no reputed educational institution in
his district?’’ the judges sought to know, asking
whether the scheme meant “meritorious students would
be left out’’.
Advocate Pawar told the court that the formula for reservations
was a policy decision, whereby 70% of the seats would be
reserved for students from the district, while the remaining
30% would be open for outsiders. The advocate informed the
court that the scheme was initially implemented in Latur
district, after the government found out that the local
students were unable to take benefit of the reputed colleges
in the region. Subsequently, the government had decided
to extend the scheme across the state, he added.
The judges were not satisfied and remarked that while the
reservation formula could be justified, the 70:30 ratio
appeared disproportionate.
FUTURE
UNCERTAIN
The
course admissions could now take Scrap 70-30: The court
could decide to scrap the quota completely. In which case,
colleges that implemented it in the second or third merit
lists may have to redo those lists
Change ratio: Court may accept the reservation, but lower
the number of seats kept for students from the same district
as the college
Maintain status quo: Court could allow the quota to continue.
Which means admissions would remain on course with colleges
complying with the quota by the fifth merit lists
Why
experiment in the age of merit, asks high court
Mumbai:
Taking the state to task for asking colleges to
implement the 70:30 quota scheme after the adm i s s i o
n s had commenced, the Bombay high court on Wednesday said,
“We are living in the age of merit, what is the point
of conducting an experiment?’’
Its comments came during a hearing on a PIL filed by Thane
Municipal Corporation NCP corporator Pratap Sarnaik, who
claimed that the government’s rule was “discriminatory’’
and against the concept of merit.
The PIL contended that district-wise reservation violated
the fundamental right of equality guaranteed by the Constitution
of India. The petitioner has relied on two Supreme Court
judgments—one from 1968 and the other from 2000—in
which districtwise admissions were held to violate the Constitution.
The state’s claim that there had been no complaints
from either the students, parents or colleges did not impress
the court which has asked the government to file its affidavit
in response to the PIL within three days.
