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Univs must follow verdict on OBC cut-off’

The Supreme Court on Friday said central universities must follow the five-judge constitution bench's ruling that the gap between cut-off marks for OBC students and that for general category students should not be more than 10%.Though hearing on an application accusing Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) of not following the constitution bench ruling was deferred till Monday, the observation of the vacation bench of Justices P Sathasivam and A K Patnaik could put a lot of colleges and universities in a difficult position.

"Educational institutions have to follow the constitution bench direction. Why should we clarify the direction any further," the bench asked before acceding to the request to post the matter before a regular bench. But it said, "We do not think any bench can deviate from the clarification already given by the constitution bench."

This means, if the cut-off for admission of general category in an institution settles at 80%, then OBC candidates desirous of admission in the same institute must get 70% to be eligible for admission to the reserved seats under the Central Educational Institutes (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006.

The case in the apex court arises out of the grouse of general category students that institutions like JNU have pegged the cut-off for OBC students at 10% below the eligibility criteria, as distinct from the cut-off, for general category students. Since the eligibility criteria for general category students in most of the institutions is set around 50%, institutions can admit even those OBC students who have scored 40%.

During the hearing, the counsel for OBC students, senior advocate A Mariarputham and Union government counsel A Subba Rao, had said if the high cut-off percentage for general category was taken as the reference point, then no OBC student could aspire to get admitted to any of the universities or colleges even if they were given 10% relaxation.

Appearing for applicant P V Indiresan, senior advocate Indu Malhotra said there would be no controversy if central universities followed the clarification given by the five-judge bench two years ago, but they were admitting OBC students without taking the last cut-off for general category as the reference point.

"They are admitting OBC students on the basis of 10% less than the general category eligibility criteria, which is way below the general category cut-off percentage," she said.

 Under the 2006 Act, central institutes were asked to increase their seats to accommodate OBC candidates without reducing the seats which were available for general category prior to implementation of quota.

 

Posted on 18 Jul 2011