VALSAMMA Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Latin Catholic Community is one among the classes recognised as socially and educationally backward in the Kerala State. All the groups and sections considered as backward in this State are not at the same level in the social scale. Some of them are in the region of the border line and their claim to be backward is now and then challenged too. Some are at the bottom of the scale. To treat all the backward classes alike and as in one group would be unfair and unjust. That would serve to fatten some at the cost of others. The weaker section among the backward will continue to be backward and the promotional device contemplated by the process of reservation would not subserve their interests. It would defeat the very purpose of the reservation. Separate and independent reservation for different sections of the backward classes within the total reservation quota is the logical answer and that has been adopted as the appropriate device. The quantum of such separate reservation would call for assessment from time to time with a view to render the reservation in favour of the more backward classes a reality. Sometimes that may call for a separate treatment of some groups within the reserved class. I am prefacing this judgment with these remarks as it appears to be relevant here. Either due to lack of imagination or absence of application of the mind the State Government had adopted an anomalous formula in the matter of reservation of seats in the Engineering Colleges of the State which device has effectively denied to some deserving classes the benefit of reservation. May be it is not by design, but due to ignorance, but that is no consolation to the communities concerned. A strange, but apparently ingenious device has been adopted as if to secure for all the sections in the backward class reservation in the matter of admission to the Engineering College. Theoretically reservation there is, but in fact reservation is totally dented to communities like the Latin Catholics. The approach exhibits a visible lack of pragmatism.

(2.) The prospectus Issued in the name of the Director of Technical Education regulating the admission to the Engineering Colleges in the state during the year 1977-78 specifies 50 seats in the 4 year Engineering Degree Course as available for admission to graduates in science. Out of these 50 seats admission on the basis of State merit would be to 50 per cent of the scats and admission on the basis of allocation between Malabar and Travancore - Cochin would be to 15 per cent of the seats. The balance 35 per cent is reserved for socially and educationally backward classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. In this group Latin Catholic (other than Anglo - Indians) have reservation to two out of the 35 per cent. Thus if 50 is the total number of seats available for science graduates for admission normally one seat must go to Latin Catholics. There were only two Latin Catholic applicants this year, the petitioner Valsamma, J. being the one and one Raphel, J. being the other. Both of them had qualifying marks. Raphel, J. had higher marks than the petitioner. Admittedly he did not appear for interview and thus forfeited his right to have admission to the course. The petitioner was the only other eligible candidate from the Latin Catholic community for admission in the reservation quota if that was available. Normally one should understand the rule of reservation as enabling the petitioner to get a seat out of the total of 50 towards the 2 per cent reservation for the Latin Catholic Community. But the petitioner was denied admission and that is the complaint in the petition. It may also be remarked here that there are 6 branches in the Engineering Degree Course, they being Civil, Mechanical, Chemical, Electrical, Architecture and Electronics and Communications. The petitioner filed separate applications for Civil, Electrical and Electronics branches Course, and she seeks admission to any one of these.

(3.) The answer in the counter affidavit filed on behalf of the Director of Technical Education, Trivandrum is no doubt simple. According to him it is true that normally one out of 50 seats must go to the Latin Catholic candidate. But since each branch of the Engineering course is allotted specific number of seats and separate applications have to be made by an applicant desiring to join the course in any one of these branches it is said that reservation was considered independently for each branch. That would mean that in the civil branch for which 11 out of 50 seats were allocated the percentage of reservation for the Latin Catholic would work out to 0.22. In the Electrical Engineering branch also it would work out to 0.22 because 11 seats were allocated in that branch. In Electronics and communications it worked out to 0.16 as the total number of seats allocated is 8. Therefore in none of the branches the petitioner sought admission or for that matter in none of the branches of the Engineering course a whole seat is available to a Latin Catholic. It is said that, as such the Latin Catholic as a separate community could not be considered for reservation. To meet this the device adopted was to club together the communities which had less than one seat in each of the branches on the basis of their reservation percentage so as to make up one seat and allot it to the person who had highest marks in that group. If, for instance, communities A, B and C are entitled to reservation, and on the basis of the percentage reserved for them the number of seats works out to less than 1 in any particular branch they would be clubbed together so as to make the reservation of one seat for the group in that branch possible. The marks of all the candidates belonging to the communities A, B and C would be considered as in one group and the candidate who gets the highest mark in that group would be given admission. May be the same story is repeated In the other branches too. The consequence would be: supposing community B is not as socially and educationally backward as the other two communities and the candidates of that community get higher marks than those of the other two communities the benefit of reservation not only to the quota of that community but also of the other two communities will also go to such community. If the candidates of the B community get more marks than that of communities A and C in the total seats representing the percentage for A, B and C, candidates of community B alone would obtain admission. It is plain that this is illogical and irrational. It is evident that this destroys the provision conferring benefit of reservation to some group or other among the Backward Communities. It is also apparent that it confers undue advantage to the less Backward group which is lucky to be clubbed with more Backward groups.