Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Sept 3: Division Bench of State High Court comprising Justice Muzaffar Hussain Attar and Justice Janak Raj Kotwal today disposed of much publicized Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by social activist Ashok Sharma challenging the Rule 17 of Reservations Rules framed under Reservation Act of the State.
“The petitioner’s contention, or say his anxiety, that Rule 17 of the Rules tends to increase the number of seats reserved for a reserved category beyond permissible limit, arises from his wrong notion about application of the Rule”, the DB said, adding “the benefit made available under Rule 17 has no relation with the seats available in open merit or those reserved for reserved category candidates”.
The DB further said: What the Rule provides is that if a candidate belonging to a reserved category and entitled to reservation succeeds in securing seat in open merit, he shall be entitled and shall have an option to retain the benefit of discipline/stream or college which would have been available to him had he been selected against a seat reserved for that category. To say otherwise, such a candidate has an option to choose between the discipline/ stream or the college available to him as an open merit candidate and the discipline/ stream or the college that would have been available to him had he been selected as a reserved category candidate.
“In case such a candidate opts for the discipline/stream or the college that would have been available to him had he been selected against a reserved seat, the discipline/stream or the college available to him as the open merit candidate will have to be allotted to the candidate who came to be selected under the reserved category against the seat having become available in that category due to selection of that particular candidate in the open merit category”, the DB said.
“It cannot be said that Rule 17 increases number of seats reserved for reserved categories beyond the prescribed limit of 35 per cent. It may be that in a given selection process the number of the selected candidates entitled to admission under one or the other reserved category exceeds the number of seats reserved for that category when some of them are selected in the open merit but that would not be illegal because right of selection of a reserved category candidate in open merit is guaranteed under the Constitution and specifically protected under Section 10 of the Act”, the DB explained.
With these observations, Division Bench dismissed the petition.
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