The Supreme Court rejected Tamil Nadu’s interim prayer to implement 50 percent OBC reservations in the All India Quota for medical colleges this year. Various political parties and the Tamil Nadu government approached the Supreme Court with a bunch of pleas after the Centre told Madras High Court that it would not be able to implement 50 percent OBC reservations in the medical seats this year.
When the Centre informed the Madras High Court that it would not be able to implement the OBC seat reservation this year since they did not have enough time, various petitions reached the Supreme Court demanding that the quota be implemented in the seats contributed by Tamil Nadu. The bench headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao dismissed the petitions.
The state government and the ruling AIADMK party in their limited point had sought relief saying that the high court had not specified that the OBC quota should be implemented in the current academic year itself.
In July, the Madras High Court had directed the government to form a committee to implement OBC reservations and ruled that there were no obstacle standing in the way of that happening. In August, 17 days after the Madras High Court passed an order directing the Government of India to form a committee to ensure implementation of 50 percent reservation for OBCs in medical seats, the Health and Family Welfare department even announced their nominee to the committee. Dr P Umanath, IAS, the Managing Director of the Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation had been nominated from the state to be on the committee.
Several Tamil Nadu parties had approached the Supreme Court in June seeking the proper implementation of OBC reservation in the All India Medical Quota. Previously, the OBCs were being provided reservation only in central universities. However, several activists and politicians had argued that since the States were allotting such a large margin of seats to the AIQ, the OBCs were losing out on seats that they could avail in non-central universities. It was estimated that the OBCs had lost out on over 10,000 seats in the last three years because the Centre had failed to implement reservation in the AIQ.
