Tamil Nadu’s tryst with horizontal reservation for college students

In August 1996, the DMK government in Tamil Nadu, headed by M. Karunanidhi, issued a high -level government order to review the education standard (GO). The committee proposed 15 percent booking for professional courses for students studying in Panchayat schools in rural areas. Later, in December 1997, another GO expanded the reservation of 15 percent to medical courses since the next academic year. Later, it was expanded to legal courses. The policy was in force for several years.

In 2001, AIADMK, led by J. Jayalithaa, came to power and soon increased the government quota from 15 percent to 25 percent.

In February 2002, a few writers of the Madras Supreme Court of Madras were opened in front of the Madras Supreme Supreme Court by the victim parties. Madras Supreme Court B. Subhashan Reddy and Justice Kp Sivasubramaniam and K. Ravijapandian, including the chief justice of that time, said the rural reservation could not continue, as well as the increase in reservation could not withstand the constitutional deed.

“For the above discussions, the rural reservation provided by 15% at first, the government orders accused by the government to be exported and extended up to 25% by giving the government orders absorbed by the government, the government decided that the object will be obtained, and they do not have such a distinction. The court also led the government to the Indian Medical Council and the Indian Bar Association for additional seats to balance the difference of those accepted under the policy.

The Tamil Nadu government submitted a special petition against the Supreme Court’s statement in the Supreme Court. He claimed that the horizontal booking aims to protect the insufficient one that cannot be treated equally with privileged, urban students. SLP argued that the classification was made based on the social and educational backwardness of students studying in schools operated by the village Panchayats. Tamil Nadu’s presentation said that the direction of the Supreme Court to create additional seats was inconsistent with the decision of the Supreme Court in the Rajiv Kapoor case.

However, the Supreme Court refused to protect the decision of the Supreme Court of Madras. As a result, 25% quota for rural students was not applied later.

About twenty years later, this time, the Tamil Nadu government, headed by AIADMK’s EDAAPPADİ K. Palaniswami, unanimously exceeded an invoice for 7.5 percent horizontal booking for public school students and passed in a preferable way for the National Compliance-Cum-Girişt Test Test (NEET) test candidates. This was based on the proposals of a commission chaired by P. Kalayarasan, the retired Supreme Judge P. Kalaiyarasan.

The Commission observed that students from public schools were disadvantageous compared to private schools.

Justice P. Kalayarasan (left), then the judge of the Supreme Court of Madras C.VE. Shanmugam (right), then on December 12, 2017 SALEM’de Tamil Nadu Minister of Law | Photo Loan: E. Lakshmi NARANANAN

In August 2021, after the DMK came to power under the rule of MK Stalin, the government’s reservation policy expanded its reservation policy to engineering, agriculture, veterinary and fishing courses based on the proposals of a commission chaired by the retired Supreme Court Judge D. Murugesan.

In doing so, although the government did not disturb the integrity of a 69 percent caste-based reservation, it has brought a background-song criterion in reservation-social and educational. This meant that public school students would be a minimum representation for BC, MBC, SC and ST students as well as in vertical quotas.

This also formed the basis of the argument when a group of petition laws in front of the Supreme Court of Madras of Tamil Nadu challenged the constitutional validity of the law. The state claimed that the law only provided a preference source and that categorization is based on understandable difference, which has a connection close to the object that tries to be achieved by ensuring that public school students are not left behind. In April 2022, the Supreme Court of Madras reserved the constitutional validity of the law.