SC upholds high court order on reservation in Manipur University

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a Manipur High Court order which said Manipur University is required to follow reservation norms of two per cent for SC candidates, 31 per cent for STs and 17 per cent for OBCs for admission purposes.

A bench of justices L Nageswara Rao and Hima Kohli said the university was correct in calculating the extent of reservation of seats in taking admissions to different courses.

The apex court endorsed the view taken by the high court that after the amendment to the Reservation Act, the university had to follow the reservation norms of two per cent for SC candidates, 31 per cent for ST candidates and 17 per cent for OBC candidates.

''The university has clarified in its affidavit that prior to commencement of the Reservation Act, the prevalent percentage of reservation for ST and SC candidates was 31 per cent and two per cent respectively. Nothing to the contrary has been brought forth by the appellant.

''That being the position, we are in complete agreement with the findings returned in the impugned judgment that the university was right in reverting back to the position obtaining immediately before the commencement of the Reservation Act by reserving seats in respect of ST, SC and OBC candidates, pegged at 31 per cent, two per cent and 17 per cent respectively, which was in consonance with the Manipur State Reservation Policy,'' the bench said.

The top court was hearing an appeal filed by Kshetrimayum Maheshkumar Singh and others challenging an order of the Manipur High Court which held that the percentage of reservation for SC and ST candidates, as was applied to the university prior to the commencement of the Reservation Act, would be adopted for determination of percentage of reservation for the reserved categories in question.

The high court directed that the percentage of reservation for students belonging to the SC, ST and the OBC categories in the university would be two per cent, 31 per cent and 17 per cent respectively for admission to various courses.

The high court, however, declined to go into the actual calculation of the seats notified as reserved by the university and confined itself to the principles to be adopted for determination of percentage of reservation of seats, on the basis of which calculation of seats had to be made.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)