- (1.) Leave granted.
(2.) The appeals have been preferred against the common judgment and order dated 07.08.2018, passed by a Division Bench of the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad for the State of Telangana and the State of Andhra Pradesh, setting aside a Government Order being G.O. Rt. No. 550 Higher Education (EC2) Department dated 30.07.2001 (hereinafter referred to as 'the impugned Government Order'), to the extent the same permitted the filling up by reserved category candidates, of open and/or general category seats in institutions offering inter alia Medical and/or Dental Courses, which became vacant when meritorious reserved category candidates who had ranked well enough to secure those seats as general candidates, opted for other disciplines or institutions where they could only have secured admission as reserved candidates.
(3.) The relevant portion of the impugned G.O. Rt. No.550 of 2001 is set out hereinbelow: "5. After careful consideration and due examination of the issue relating to implementation of reservation of Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes/ Backward Classes in engineering and other Professional Courses the following instructions are hereby issued:- (i) In the counseling process, the seats to be filled by open competition should be filled up first, wherein the candidates should be called for counseling based on merit alone irrespective of whether they belong to SC, ST or BC in accordance with the instructions issued by the Government in G.O. Ms. No.996, Employment and Social Welfare, dated 11th November, 1975. (ii) Next, reservation categories like SC/ST/ BC candidates will be counseled to fill the seats earmarked for them in their respective categories. During this process, if a candidate belonging to Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes/ Backward Classes, who had taken admission under open competition, opts for a better branch or a better college of his choice for which he or she would be eligible as per the rules of reservation, the seats vacated by him or her in open competition shall be filled with a candidate from the same reservation category only, in order or merit.";