Alld HC quashes UP govt’s special quota orders for 4 govt medical colleges

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has quashed the government reservation orders for admissions to government medical colleges in Kannauj, Saharanpur, Ambedkar Nagar, and Jalaun for the NEET 2025 examination.

The court has ordered the state government to fill the seats of Medical colleges following the Reservation Act, 2006, afresh. Along with this, the court also quashed the special reservation government order of the UP government for admission in these medical colleges. In this case, the government’s order to give reservations in excess of the legally prescribed limit in filling the seats of these medical colleges was challenged.

Advertisement

A single bench of Justice Pankaj Bhatia gave this decision on Friday by accepting the petition of NEET-2025 candidate Sabra Ahmed.

The petitioner had challenged the issue of the approved limit of reservation for admission in government medical colleges of Ambedkar Nagar, Kannauj, Jalaun, and Saharanpur.

The petitioner said that the Uttar Pradesh government had made the Reservation Act, 2006, to provide reservations to Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, and OBC candidates in educational institutions.

In the admissions made in medical colleges under this Act, the seats were filled by violating the reservation limit of 50 per cent given in the Act, the petitioner pointed out. That is, more than 50 per cent reservation was given by issuing a government order, which was against the intention of the law.

The petition was opposed by the state government.

The court said that the state government’s orders fixing the reservation limit are clearly against the Reservation Act, 2006. It said that the rule of a 50 per cent reservation limit set by the government cannot be violated without any legal authority. In such a situation, these government orders cannot be justified. With this comment, the court cancelled six government orders issued between 2010 and 2015, violating the reservation limit.

The state government was directed to fill the seats of these four medical colleges as per the Central and State Government Reservation Act, 2006.

The court also directed the counselling board to conduct a “fresh exercise to fill the seats in accordance with the reservation provisions of the 2006 Act.” It further asked the medical education department to seek legal advice before issuing any new directions.

Each medical college had 85 seats, with only 7 allocated to the general category after reservations. The remaining seats were distributed as 62 for SC and 5 for ST, along with 11 for OBC.

The Kannauj Medical College was established by the Uttar Pradesh government in 2010, Ambedkar Nagar in 2011, Jalaun in 2013, and Saharanpur in 2015.