SC directs Madhya Pradesh govt. to re-examine ‘wholesale’ reservation for State residents in B.Ed admission

The Supreme Court said reserving 75% of the seats for the residents of Madhya Pradesh in Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) courses is “too high”, and as the figures for the last two years indicate, it is not serving the intended purpose. 

The Supreme Court has directed the Madhya Pradesh Government to re-examine its policy of granting 75% quota to State residents in admission to Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) courses, terming it "wholesale reservation" which is unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court said reserving 75% of the seats for the residents of Madhya Pradesh is "too high", and as the figures for the last two years indicate, it is not serving the intended purpose. 

A Bench of Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Sudhanshu Dhulia said though the State is within its rights to reserve seats for its residents, while doing so it must keep the ground realities in mind.

"The number of seats from the next academic year shall therefore be fixed again for residents and non-residents, keeping in mind the observations made by us in this order. 

"We make it clear that though reservation in favour of residents is permissible, yet reservation to the extent of 75% of the total seats makes it a wholesale reservation, which has been held in Pradeep Jain (case) to be unconstitutional and violative of Article 14 (equality before law) of the Constitution," the Bench said.

The court asked the State Government to examine the data of the last few years in order to come to a realistic conclusion as to what should be the extent of such reservation. 

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