The Supreme Court has asked the Madhya Pradesh government to review its decision to have 75% domicile reservation in B.Ed seats. The apex court has stated that domicile reservation should not become a “wholesale reservation.”
“We make it clear 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 to be unconstitutional and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India”, the bench stated.
The court was hearing to an appeal filed by a teachers training institute challenging the 75% domicile reservation in B.Ed seats in the state. Most of the domicile quota seats were lying vacant as pointe out by the appellant. In 2021-22 academic year, only 4 seats out of the 75 state quota seats got filled and in 2022-2023 academic year, 73 out of the 75 domicile seats were vacant.
The Supreme Court approved the idea of domicile reservation in educational seats in Dr. Pradeep Jain and Others v. Union of India and Others (1984) 3 SCC 654 and the cases that followed, according to the bench made up of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Sudhanshu Dhulia. However, those were cases related to medical education.
In regards with the B.Ed seats, the bench noted,
“We should not lose sight of this vital fact when we are dealing with the reservations based on residence in other fields of education, as we are doing presently. Whether 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.”
