JAGADISH SARAN Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Many a case in this Court is the dramatisation on the forensic stage, of social stress or community conflict which seeks resolution or release through the litigative process. This writ petition turns the focus on one such tense issue and ventilates a widespread grievance which deserves constitutional examination.

(2.) The petitioner, Dr. Ramesh, is a medical graduate from the Madras University. His father, an officer under the Central Government, was transferred to Delhi and son, desirous of taking a post-graduate degree in Dermatology, applied for admission to the University of Delhi which offers that course. He took the common entrance test and secured enough marks to qualify for admission but was turned down because of a rule reserving 70% of the seats, at the post-graudate level, to Delhi graduates (if we may use that abbreviation for describing student-applicants who have taken their M. B. B. S. degree from the University of Delhi). The remaining 30% was open to all, including graduates of Delhi. This rule was made in April 1978 in modification of the earlier reservation of 48%.

(3.) Had this inflation (from 48% to 70% plus) not been made, the petitioner admittedly would have been granted admission. So what blocked his right to post-graduate entry was this rule of institutional quota of 70% which accorded a disproportionate premium in favour of Delhi graduates. The other petitioners are no longer in the race having secured lesser marks at the entrance test, and so the judicial lens must be fixed on the validity of such a considerable reservation or virtual monopoly for the Delhi graduates. The petitioner challenges its vires as violative of Article 14 to 16 and seeks the court's writ to direct the respondent University to admit him to the M. D. course (Dermatology). While litigating for his right to a seat in the post-graduate degree course in Dermatology, he is now doing his diploma course in the same subject in the same University, which is inferior to his aspiration and entitlement if the right to equality is fatal to the quota policy.