- (1.) Having heard the counsel for both the parties we are of the opinion that the following further information should be furnished and action taken, by the government: (i) In paragraph 9 of the affidavit sworn to by Dr Karuppa Swarni, it is stated that the seats falling vacant on account of the allotted students not accepting the admission, were allocated observing the principle of 50% ceiling. But the said paragraph does not make it clear as to how many seats fell vacant in the open category and how many in the respective reserved categories. These particulars be furnished. (ii) It is admitted that among the students admitted against the additional seats created pursuant to our order dated 5.11.1993, there are several students belonging to reserved categories who were granted admission earlier under the respective reserved categories, but were given admission against the additional seats on the basis of their merit ranking. This necessarily means that some seats did fall vacant in the reserved categories. The government shall furnish particulars regarding how many seats fell vacant in each of these reserved categories and how were they dealt with. In other words were these vacancies clubbed with the seats mentioned in paragraph 9 or were they treated as a separate category and filled exclusively with the respective reserved candidates. (iii) In paragraph 10 it is stated that out of the merit quota, 161 seats reserved for all-India quota (which are filled by the Director General of Health Services, government of India, on the basis of all-India merit) were deducted. The rationale for this is stated to be - since all 161 seats are filled exclusively on merit without applying any rule of reservation, these were deducted out of the merit quota. At the present moment we do not wish to say anything about this. But the other fact stated in paragraph 10 is that another 54 seats were earmarked for special categories like physically handicapped etc. It appears that these 54 seats were also deducted from the merit quota which appears to be ex facie wrong. As has been stated in the Judgement of Indra Sawhpey V/s. Union Of India, 1992 Supp3 SCC 215 indict these reservations fall under clause (1) of Art. 16 of the Constitution and have to be evenly (proportionately) spread over to the several categories including in open competition category. Therefore, the deduction of 54 seats from out of merit quota alone is bad.
(2.) The government shall now follow the principle indicated above and spread these 54 seats among all the categories and make admissions to the resulting open competition seats from among the open competition candidates exclusively. While working out the open competition quota, the rule of 50% ceiling shall be applied. The same principle shall be applied in the case of Engineering Colleges and other colleges. The government shall complete the exercise as per these directions and furnish the particulars of action taken by them.
(3.) List on 26.11.1993 at 2 p.m. No orders on the impleadment application.;