New Delhi: As per the Supreme Court hearing held on January 20, 2022, the bench stated that ‘entrance examinations are not proxy for merit’. Merit should be socially contextualized and should mainly focus on providing equal opportunities to students.
The statement came after the Supreme Court upheld a 27% quota reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC) in All India Quota (AIQ) for NEET in reference to pleas submitted for reservations. The announcement was made as part of the detailed order for 27% reservation for OBC and 10% for EWS categories in NEET.
Adding to the statement, the bench headed by Justice DY Chandrachud said open competitive examinations, such as NEET should provide equal opportunities to students. But in reality, these examinations only provide formal equality of opportunities, the court added.
The observations were made after the Supreme Court passed an order regarding NEET Reservation Criteria, which states that 27% reservation for Other Backward Class (OBC) and 10% for the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category will be implemented for this year.
The Supreme Court further clarified that the Central Government does not require any permissions from the court with regards to reservation criteria in NEET competitive examination.
While talking about the role of the State Government, Justice Chandrachud said, "state governments’ power to provide reservations under Article 15 (4) and (5) of the Constitution was not an “exception” to Article 15 (1)". The article clearly states that “the State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them”.
He added that examinations are not meant to reflect the social, economical, and cultural advantages given to certain categories.
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As per the reports, the approval has come out to be an advantage for states like Tamil Nadu, where they will now have the power to make “special provisions”. Furthermore, the state will provide reservations in the admission process in various aided and unaided institutes.
While for the government jobs recruitment process, the approval will provide an advancement of “any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes”.
The orders were released after the Supreme Court said that NEET Counselling 2022 can not be delayed for this academic year. The matters regarding pleas submitted against EWS category reservation in NEET will be reviewed in the third week of March 2022.
Earlier, on January 07, 2022, Supreme Court gave the approval to resume the NEET PG 2021 for the 2022-23 academic session without any further delay. NEET PG 2021 Counselling will now resume with 27% reservation criteria for OBC and 10% for EWS categories.
With this decision, about 45,000 junior doctors could join the workforce and help India fight against the COVID-19.
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