"Rules Mandate Horizontal Reservation": AP High Court Rejects Open Category Candidate's Plea For Admission In MBBS Course Under Sports Quota

A division bench of Chief Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur and Justice R. Raghunandan Rao held so after noting that the A.P. Unaided Non-Minority Professional Institutions (Regulations of Admissions into Under Graduate Medical and Dental Professional Courses) Rules which were amended in July 2007 "make it clear that the reservation granted under sports quota, would be a horizontal reservation under which, the seats available under sports quota would have to be distributed among all the social communities". 

"This amendment was challenged before the erstwhile High court of Andhra Pradesh in P. Srividya vs. State of Andhra Pradesh.A division of the erstwhile High Court of Andhra Pradesh, after considering the challenge to this amendment, in terms of the grounds raised by the learned counsel for the petitioner herein, had upheld the amendment. The division bench, following the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court, in “Indira Sawhney vs. Union of India1992 Supp (3) SCC 217, had also held that there was a necessity to treat the special reservations, mentioned above, as horizontal reservations. In those circumstances, the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner that distribution of sports quota seats among various social groups is not permissible, has to be rejected," the bench said in its order. 

Background

The Court was hearing Shanmukha Kanaka Priya Chinta's plea who had appeared for NEET 2021 Examination for admission to Under Graduate Medical Courses and secured Rank No. 654334. Thereafter, she applied for admission in MBBS course under the sports quota relying on her performance in Handball. However, she was unable to secure a seat through the sports category, consequent to which, she joined the NRI Medical College (Respondent 21) under the management seat category.

Aggrieved by the allotment of seats, she subsequently filed a writ petition before the High Court on the ground that various persons, who had achieved lesser priority than her in the sports category, had been allotted medical seats in various colleges. She specifically highlighted the case of one another candidate (Respondent 18), who was granted a seat through the sports quota on the Convenor quota in the Respondent 21 college and was placed at priority no.146, while the petitioner was placed at priority no.92 in the final merit list. She claimed that the allotment of seats was not in alignment with the merit list prepared under the sports category and was thus arbitrary and unreasonable.

The petitioner further contended that sports quota is a separate category of reservation immune from consideration of social status and allotting seats in sports quota according to the social status of community of the person concerned would constitute reservation within reservation, which is impermissible.

The respondent University, in the counter affidavit, argued that sports category reservation is to be treated as horizontal reservation under which seats are allocated within the sports category to persons on the basis of the social status of their community. Since the petitioner belonged to the open category, priority was given to Respondent 18 who belonged to BC-A (Backward Class) category. It was also contended that there was no seat available to a sports person belonging to OC (Open) category in respondent 21 college. Meanwhile the college contended that various Government Orders provided for sub-categorization of sports quota, in as much as, the said quota was only a horizontal reservation and not a vertical reservation which can be treated as a separate silo for allotment of seats.

Findings

The Court noted that the A.P. Un-aided Non-Minority Professional Institutions (Regulations of Admissions into Under Graduate Medical and Dental Professional Courses) Rules 2007 A.P. Unaided Non-Minority Professional Institutions (Regulations of Admissions into Under Graduate Medical and Dental Professional Courses) Rules were issued on April 30, 2007 for regulating admission of students into UG Medical and Dental Professional Courses. These  Rules prescribed the criteria for admission, allotment of seats, procedure for filling up the competent authority seats as well as management seats.

Barring the 2007 Rules, a distinct set of rules for reservation in admission, both for region and community, were prescribed, which ascertained the seats reserved for SC, ST and BC communities and also stipulated reservation for sub-categories with respect to the physically handicapped, National Cadet Corps, Games and Sports as so on. Following an amendment on July 11, 2007 reservation for the above-mentioned three categories were stated to be provided on the basis of “compartmentalized horizontal reservation for each category of OC, BC, SC and STs”.

The Court held that as per the amended rules, reservation under sports quota would be horizontal and seats available under the same would be distributed equally among all social communities. 

As the petitioner belonged to the open category group and Respondent 18, to whom the sports quota seat had been allotted, was in the BC-A group, the Court held that even if the petitioner was eligible otherwise, she would not have been granted a seat in the respondent No.21-college.

The Court further held,"The claim of the petitioner can also be viewed from another angle. In view of the fact that the sports quota seats have to be distributed between the social communities, the petitioner would have a case if she could point to any other sports person in the open category, who was allotted a seat even though he/she was less meritorious than the petitioner in the sports quota. The petitioner does not make out any such case.”

The Court dismissed the petition.

Case Title: Shanmukha Kanaka Priya Chinta v. The State Of Andhra Pradesh and Others