IMPORTANT POINT
Reservation – A candidate belonging to any of vertical reservation categories who on the basis of his own merit is entitled to be selected in open or general category, will be selected against general category and his selection would not be counted against quota reserved for such vertical reservation categories.

JUDGMENT :

B.R. GAVAI, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. The present appeals challenge the judgments and orders dated 22nd December 2023 and 12th January 2024 passed by the High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Gwalior in Writ Petition Nos. 23998 and 23437 of 2023, and 23060 of 2023 respectively. By the said writ petitions, the writ petitioners (appellants herein) had challenged the decision of the Respondent-Department of Medical Education of not allotting MBBS Unreserved (UR) Category Government School (GS) quota seats to the meritorious reserved candidates, who had passed from the Government Schools. The appellants had also prayed for a direction to the Respondent-Department to allot the MBBS seats of Unreserved Category Government School quota to the appellants.

3. Writ petitioners in Writ Petition No. 23060 of 2023 before the High Court have approached this Court by way of appeals arising out of Special Leave Petition (SLP) (Civil) Nos. 2111 and 2285 of 2024, and writ petitioners in Writ Petition Nos. 23437 and 23998 of 2023 have approached this Court by way of appeals arising out of SLP (C) Nos. 2311-2312 of 2024.

4. Since the facts giving rise to the present appeals as given below are identical and same, the said appeals are decided by the common judgment and order.

4.1 On 19th June 2019, the amendment by the State Government to the Madhya Pradesh Education Admission Rules, 2018 (hereinafter referred to as the “Admission Rules, 2018”) were notified. In place of sub-rules (l) and (u) of rule 2 and sub-rule (2) of rule 4, new sub-rules were established that defined “category” and the method to fill vacancies for category wise reservation was established.

4.2 On 7th May 2023, the NEET (UG) Examination was conducted in which the appellants had participated in.

4.3 On 10th May 2023, the State of Madhya Pradesh notified another amendment in the Admission Rules, 2018. Sub-Rule (f) and (b) were added to Rule 2 that defined “Government School” and the students who could fall under the category of “Government School Students.” A new table in existing clause (b) of Schedule-2 detailing the quantum of reservations was added in which 5% of the total seats were reserved for government school students.

4.4 Subsequently, the results of NEET (UG) were declared on 13th June 2023. Then, on 25th July 2023, an advisory was issued notifying that the Admission Rules, 2018 and the amendment thereto dated 10th May 2023 would apply to the counselling process.

4.5 A chart showing the names of the appellants, marks obtained by them in NEET UG - 2023, their categories and their details in the appeals, are as under:

4.6 Thereafter, on 22nd August 2023, the State/Respondents issued the seat wise distribution of medical colleges at the end of the 2nd round of counselling. Since several seats remained vacant according to Rule 2 (g) of the Admission Rules, 2018, the vacancies were transferred from one category to other categories. In the instant case, out of 89 unreserved seats for Government School students, 77 were sent to the open category.

4.7 Being aggrieved by the fact that the vacant seats were going to be released to the unreserved category, the aforesaid writ petitions were filed by the appellants before the High Court, where it was prayed that the meritorious students of reserved category who have studied in Government Schools must be allotted MBBS seats of unreserved category government school q