New Delhi: Tamil Nadu’s ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) has filed a petition before the Supreme Court seeking direction to implement 50% reservation for OBCs in the medical admissions under the all India quota according to the state’s law.
AIADMK senior leader and TN’s law minister C.Ve.Shanmugam has filed the petition stating it is unacceptable to exclude the OBCs from the reservation in the all India quota for Under Graduate, Post Graduate and Diploma Medical admissions in Tamil Nadu.
“Denying reservation for OBCs in state surrendered seats for medical admissions is unconstitutional as it is against article 14, 15 and 16,” the writ petition reads.
Shanmugam further contended that OBCs have been underrepresented in the all India quota for past few academic years in the medical admissions including UG, PG, diploma and PG diploma seats.
“In 2018-19, only 272 OBC students were admitted for PG medical courses despite they had 2152 seats out of 7,982 seats. While taking the UG courses only 66 OBC students were admitted under the all India quota. It is noted there are 4061 seats are available under all India quota and 50 % of them, around 2030 seats must have been reserved for OBCs,” the AIADMK claimed.
In 2020, 8800 out of 9550 all India quota seats were surrendered by the colleges. However, none of the seats was allocated to OBCs.
"All these seats were surrendered to the general category which is unjustified and unconstitutional,” the AIADMK said in its petition.
The Dravidian major also accused the union government saying that the centre is not following its own 27% reservation for OBCs under the 2006 act.
“It is also neglecting the state’s mandate in reservations,” petition claims.
The petitioner also stated that there should not be any excuse for excluding OBCs from the state-captured seats in all India quotas in medical admissions.
“Our leader and former CM J Jayalalithaa was a frontrunner in implementing the reservation for oppressed and socially disadvantaged groups. She had struggled a lot to get the approval of president for the inclusion of TN backward classes, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes Act 1993 into the ninth schedule of the constitution. The act has been ensuring reservation 50% reservation in educational institutions and appointments of posts in the state government along with the existing 18% reservation for SCs and 1% for STs,” the AIADMK noted.
According to the Medical Council of India’s Regulations, 15% of seats in UG and 50% of seats in PG medical colleges in states have to be surrendered for all India quota.
Therefore, AIADMK sought a direction to Union Government, MCI, DGHS and others to implement 50% reservation for OBCs in TN in the state-captured seats to the all India quota in the medical admissions for 2020-2021 academic year.
It is noted the AIADMK has expressed its dissatisfaction that about 1000 seats have been denied to OBCs in last three years as the centre failed to follow the 27% OBCs reservations and state government’s mandates regarding the OBCs reservations.
Also read: Textile, leather, engineering clusters take maximum loan sanctions under ECLGS scheme
