J&K Reservation Rules | Reservation For Children Of Defence Personnel Is Horizontal, Not Compartmentalised: High Court

Clarifying the nature of reservation extended to wards of defence personnel, the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has held that the three percent (3%) reservation provided to Children of Defence Personnel (CDP) under the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Rules, 2005, is an overall horizontal reservation and not a compartmentalized horizontal reservation.

“… three percent (3%) reservation provided to Children of Defence Personnel is an overall horizontal reservation and not compartmentalized horizontal reservation. It cuts across the vertical reservation and a person, selected against CDP quota, will have to be placed in the appropriate category”, remarked Justice Sanjay Dhar while dismissing a petition filed by a candidate seeking admission under the CDP quota in NEET-UG 2025.

Background of the Case:

The petitioner, Ravneet Kour, appeared in the NEET-UG 2025 examination conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) and secured 348 marks with UT Rank 3223. Belonging to the Scheduled Tribe-2 (ST-2) category and claiming eligibility under the CDP (Priority-IV) quota, she alleged that the Jammu and Kashmir Board of Professional Entrance Examination (BOPEE) had wrongly ignored her candidature despite her higher priority status.

According to the petitioner, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) policy lays down inter se priorities among CDP candidates, and she should have been selected in preference to candidates of lower priority within the same quota. She, therefore, sought a direction to BOPEE to consider her candidature under the CDP quota within ST-2 category and to redraw the counselling list for NEET-UG 2025 admissions.

Resisting the plea, BOPEE submitted that the 3% horizontal reservation for CDP category candidates (female) had already been fully utilized during online counselling. Out of the total seats available, 21 female CDP candidates had been allotted MBBS seats and 3 candidates BDS seats purely on merit, thus exceeding the prescribed quota of 14 seats earmarked for female candidates under the CDP category.

BOPEE further argued that since the quota had already been exhausted based on merit, there was no need to displace any candidate for accommodating another under the same category. The Board also maintained that the application of inter se priority did not arise as the horizontal reservation stood fully satisfied.

Court's Observations:

Justice Dhar, after hearing both sides, found that the petitioner had failed to indicate in her writ petition the specific candidates with lower priority who had been allegedly selected in violation of the MoD policy. The Court noted that none of those candidates had been made parties to the petition.

“The contents of the writ petition are bereft of any details in this regard. The petition on this ground alone deserves to be dismissed,” the Court observed.

Further, even on merits, the Court found no substance in the petitioner's claim. Referring to the stand of BOPEE that the three percent horizontal reservation for female CDP candidates had already been exhausted on merit, the Court observed that there was “no occasion for the respondent-BOPEE to consider the priority of the candidates selected under the said quota.”

In an important clarification of law, Justice Dhar observed that horizontal reservation cuts across the vertical reservation and reiterated that the reservation provided to Children of Defence Personnel under the J&K Reservation Rules, 2005, is an overall horizontal reservation and not a compartmentalized one.

To reinforce this interpretation, the Court relied on the Division Bench judgment in Syed Shaifta Arifeen Balkhi v. J&K Public Service Commission & Ors, wherein similar principles had been laid down in the context of reservation for physically challenged persons. Quoting from that decision, the Court observed that horizontal reservation “would cut across the vertical reservation and the persons selected against such quota would be placed in the appropriate category.”

The Court explained that if a CDP candidate belongs to a particular vertical category say, Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, or Open Merit he or she must be adjusted within that category without creating separate sub-quota compartments.

Analyzing the data from the provisional select list, the Court noted that as many as 24 female candidates under the CDP category had already been selected on their own merit in their respective vertical categories—Open Merit, Scheduled Caste, and Scheduled Tribe. Once this number exceeded the prescribed quota, there was no occasion for BOPEE to displace any existing candidate merely because another candidate claimed higher priority under the same category, the court underscored.

Justice Dhar held that the petitioner's claim would have been relevant only if the CDP category seats had remained unfilled. “Once the quota under CDP had already exhausted while allocating seats to female candidates on the basis of the merit obtained by them in the entrance examination, there was no need for the respondent-BOPEE to displace any candidate from any of the categories to make way for a candidate having inferior merit and better priority,” the Court reasoned.

Finding no illegality in BOPEE's admission process or violation of reservation policy, the Court dismissed the writ petition.

Case Title: Ravneet Kour Vs Union of India

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