SC to Consider the Legality of Converting Unfilled Reservation Seats of In-Service Quota to General Category NEET admission

The Supreme Court in the case Shaline Agrawal v. The State Of Madhya Pradesh And Or’s observed in the Special Leave Petition preferred by “in-service candidates” of the State of Madhya Pradesh seeking to not shift the unfilled seats of the reserved category of in-service compartment to open/direct category the court issued the notice to the State of Madhya Pradesh.

The High Court had refused to entertain the writ petition preferred by “in- service candidates” wherein they, after relying on Rule 4 and Rule 14 of the Madhya Pradesh Chikitsa Shiksha Pravesh Niyam, 2018, had contended that unfilled seats of SC/ST/OBC/EWS category falling under 30% reserved compartment earmarked for ‘in-service candidates’ cannot be converted/shifted to the pool of open/direct category the same could only be converted to the pool of open/direct category, before the same being first offered to general/unreserved category candidates within the same pool/compartment of ‘in-service candidates was being further argued by them in the Impugned Judgement.

The candidates after referring to Rule 4 and Rule 14 of the Admission Rules submitted that the unfilled seats of reserved category in-service compartment cannot be shifted to open/direct category and that intermingling of seats between two compartments was impermissible before the High Court further it was argued before the court that in the absence of any express enabling provision, the action of respondents in shifting the seats of one compartment (in-service category to another namely open/direct category) is bad-in-law and that the Admission Rules must be given purposive interpretation.

The Admission Rules Rule 4 dealt with the methodology for filling the posts category wise and Rule 14 of the Admission Rules provides for reserving 30 posts for in-service candidates in Degree/PG Courses.

The bench of Justices Sujoy Paul And Dwarka Dhish Bansal observed:

Putting it differently, in sub Rule (2) of Rule 14 it is mentioned about vacancies of sub Rule (1) of Rule 14(1), A minute reading of sub Rule (1) and (2) of Rule 14 leaves no room for any doubt that ‘vacancies’ means all the vacancies and not vacancies confined to ‘in-service candidates’ in our considered opinion, the vacancy of sub Rule (1) relates to the entire set of vacancies of all subjects available in Government and Private Medical Colleges as well as in Dental Hospitals, At the cost of repetition with the line of argument advanced by learned counsel for the petitioners further the bench said that we are unable to persuade ourselves.
The bench comprising of Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli in an impunged judgement dated April 11, 2022 was considering the SLP against the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s.

The Court had earlier declined to entertain the plea against the challenge to the same order having due regards to the stage of admission process. He further submitted that he was not pressing claim for the current academic year but for the entitlement on the ensuing year, the Counsel appearing for the in-service candidate submitted.
The Bench further refused to grant relief.