LI NETWORK
Supreme Court bench consisting of justices, U U Lalit, Ravindra Bhat and Hrishikesh Roy said that the general category vacancies in public employment are open to everyone, including aspirants from the reserved categories like other backward classes (OBCs) and Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).
Supreme Court entertaining Plea filed by two candidates, belonging from OBC-female and SC-female categories respectively who had appeared for the exam in 2013 meant for selection of constables in Uttar Pradesh led to the pronouncement of the judgement.
Bench said,“The principle that candidates belonging to any of the vertical reservation categories are entitled to be selected in “Open or General Category” is well settled. It is also well accepted that if such candidates belonging to reserved categories are entitled to be selected on the basis of their own merit, their selection cannot be counted against the quota reserved for the categories for vertical reservation that they belong,”.
Justice Bhat, who wrote a separate concurring judgment, opined, “The open category is not a ‘quota’, but is rather available to all women and men alike.”
He said that the open category is open to all, and the only condition for a candidate to be shown in it is merit, regardless of whether reservation benefit of either type is available to her or him.
Sonam Tomar, a candidate from the OBC-female category, alleged that she had scored more marks than the general category woman who got the employment.
Court said, “All candidates coming from ‘OBC Female Category’ who had secured more marks than 274.8928, i.e. the marks secured by the last candidate appointed in ‘General Category–Female’ must be offered employment as Constables in Uttar Pradesh Police.”
It said the logical outcome would have been to “annul” the selection and instruct the authorities to do the exercise “de novo” (afresh) in the light of conclusions made.
“However, considering the facts that those selected candidates have actually undergone training and are presently in employment and that there are adequate number of vacancies available, we mould the relief,” the bench said.
The court asked the state government to issue letters to all those OBC female category candidates who scored more marks than general category female candidates who were selected.