ROHITH P. REDDY Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Article 371-D of the Constitution empowers the President of India to make special provisions for the State of Andhra Pradesh in the matters of public employment and education. In exercise thereof, the President promulgated the Andhra Pradesh Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admissions) Order, 1974 (for brevity, 'the Presidential Order'). Paragraph 6 of the Presidential Order provides for local reservation in Statewide universities and states that admission to 85% of the available seats in every course of study offered by a Statewide university shall be in favour of and allocated amongst local candidates in relation to the local areas specified in paragraph 3, subject to the condition that there is at least one unreserved seat. Paragraph 8 empowers the President to authorize the State Government to issue such directions as may be necessary or expedient for the purpose of giving effect to the Presidential Order.

(2.) In accordance with this authorization, the State Government issued instructions from time to time, which were consolidated in G.O.P.No.646, Education Department, dated 10-07-1979. Annexure IV to G.O.P.No.646 dated 10-07-1979 details the procedure for implementation of the reservation in favour of local candidates in Statewide universities and provides, under paras 3 and 4, that the seats reserved for local candidates of the three university local areas, viz. Andhra University area, Osmania University area and Sri Venkateswara University area, shall be 85% of the available seats which shall be allocated amongst the local candidates of these areas in the ratio of 42:36:22 respectively. Para 5 thereof provides that a provisional list of admissions shall be drawn up for filling up all the available seats on the basis of the relative merit of eligible applicants duly incorporating the reservations in favour of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Classes, Women etc. The candidates in the provisional list are to be arranged in order of merit or where the rules provide for any other order, in the order so provided. Para 6 states that this provisional admission list is to be subjected to scrutiny to ascertain the number of local candidates in relation to each university local area and if the number of such local candidates equals or exceeds the number of seats reserved and allocated in favour of such university area, the provisional list shall be deemed to be final. Para 7 provides that in the event such scrutiny discloses that the number of local candidates in relation to a particular university area falls short of the required number, the local candidates in relation to the deficit university area or areas, not included in the provisional admission list, shall be arranged in order of merit in a separate list titled 'the remainder list' and thereafter, candidates finding a place in the provisional admission list, being non-local candidates (i.e., those who are not local candidates in respect of any of the three university areas) and local candidates of any university area who are in excess of the number of seats reserved for such area, shall be successively eliminated in reverse order from the bottom of the provisional list and shall be replaced by local candidates in relation to the deficit university area from the remainder list in order of merit. Such adjustment shall however be subject to maintaining social and other reservations.

(3.) While so, the Government of Andhra Pradesh effected amendments to G.O.P.No.646 dated 10-07-1979 through G.O.Ms.No.42, Higher Education (EC.2) Department, dated 18-05-2009, whereby, while making admissions, it was proposed that the first 15% of the available seats shall be filled up following the combined merit list of all the eligible candidates and thereafter, the remaining 85% of the seats shall be filled up with local candidates only. In terms of this new methodology, paras 6 and 7 of Annexure IV to G.O.P.No.646 dated 10-07-1979, dealing with Statewide universities, were substituted to the effect that the provisional admission list would be divided into two parts, the first part comprising the first 15% seats filled up on the basis of merit alone, while the second part would comprise the remaining 85% of the seats which would accommodate the local candidates in keeping with the specified percentages for the respective university areas. In the event the second part of the provisional list did not contain any non-local candidates and the specified percentage of reservation for local candidates vis--vis each university area was satisfied, the list would be approved. However, if any non-local candidate found mention in the second part, he or she would be removed and replaced by a local candidate, thereby ensuring reservation of 85% of the available seats in favor of local candidates duly satisfying the specified percentages for the three university local areas.