Allahabad HC reserves order on UP govt's appeal over reserved seats in 4 medical colleges

Lucknow, Sep 2 (PTI) The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict on the special appeal of the Uttar Pradesh government, challenging the single judge bench judgment which quashed the government orders following which more than 79 per cent of seats had been kept for the reserved category in the government medical colleges of Ambedkar Nagar, Kannauj, Jalaun and Saharanpur.

The division bench will pronounce its verdict on September 4.

A bench of Justices Rajan Roy and Manjeev Shukla passed the order on the special appeal moved by the Medical Education Department of the state government.

The UP government had engaged a battery of special private lawyers, including senior advocates J N Mathur and Sanjay Bhasin, as well as advocate Syed Mohammad Haider Rizvi to argue the matter despite there being 10 additional advocates general in Lucknow bench in order to get the quota restored in any way.

The lawyers had pleaded that the Supreme Court had permitted above 50 per cent reservation quota in admission in the Indira Sahni case but ignoring the ruling, the single judge bench set aside the reservation in an "illegal manner".

Hearing the writ petition filed by NEET candidate Sabra Ahmad, the single bench last week had found that the petitioner had appeared in the NEET-2025 exam in which he got 523 marks and his all-India rank was 29,061.

The single bench had also found that by the government orders (issued on January 20, 2010; February 21, 2011; July 13, 2011; July 19, 2012; July 17, 2013; and June 13, 2015), the reservation limit in the said medical colleges was increased to more than 79 per cent, which was clearly contrary to the established principle of not having reservation more than the limit of 50 per cent.

It was stated before the single bench that the said medical colleges had a total of 85 seats each in the state government quota, while only seven seats each had been kept for the unreserved category.

In its judgment, the single bench had said that the 50 per cent quota limit could not be increased only by following the rules.

The state government has challenged the single judge's bench judgment in the special appeal before the two judge bench. PTI COR ABN ABN KSS KSS