7.5% medical quota is preferential admission and not reservation per se: State

‘Such preferential admission had withstood judicial scrutiny and received HC and SC approval’

A law enacted by the State legislature in 2020, providing 7.5% quota for government school students in undergraduate medical admissions, is only a preferential source of admission to government seats in medical colleges and cannot be called reservation per se, the Higher Education Department has argued in the Madras High Court.

In his written submissions before Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy, senior counsel P. Wilson, representing the department, said government and private schools were two sources of admission to medical colleges and, of them, one source was given preference to the extent of 7.5%

Contending that the State was empowered to categorise the sources of admission and provide preferential admission to one source, he said such categorisation was based on an intelligible differentia, which had a close nexus to the object sought to be achieved by ensuring that the government school students did not lag behind.

He argued that the Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Courses in Medicine, Dentistry, Indian Medicine and Homeopathy on preferential basis to students of Government schools Act, 2020 could not be treated like a law that provides communal reservation, and that it was only a preferential source of admission.

Stating that such preferential admission had withstood judicial scrutiny and received the approval of the Supreme Court as well as the High Court in cases filed against preference given to government doctors in postgraduate admissions, the senior counsel said the same principle would apply to cases challenging the 2020 law, too.

He pointed out that a Division Bench of Justices N. Kirubakaran (since retired) and B. Pugalendhi had, on August 19, 2021, dismissed a batch of writ petitions filed in the Madurai Bench of the High Court, challenging the law, and held that it was not for the courts to interfere with the State’s policy decision.

“Since the Act has already been upheld by this court, there cannot be another challenge by way of separate writ petitions challenging the Act again. If repeated challenges are encouraged, that too within one year of the legislation being upheld by a coordinate Bench, it will only result in unconscionable waste of judicial time,” the submissions read.