NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has declined to review its August 12 judgment scrapping State quotas and reservation in private, unaided, minority and non-minority professional educational institutions across the country.

A seven-judge Bench, in a brief order passed in the chambers of the Chief Justice on Tuesday, dismissed a review petition filed by the Tamil Nadu Government. It comprised Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal, Justice B.N. Agrawal, Justice Arun Kumar, Justice G.P. Mathur, Justice C.K. Thakker, Justice Tarun Chatterjee and Justice P.K. Balasubramanyan. The Bench said: "The validity of the Tamil Nadu Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes [Reservation of Seats in Educational Institutions and of Appointments or Posts in the Service under the State] Act, 1993, has not been gone into in the judgment of which review is sought. In our view no case is made out to review our judgment dated August 12."

According to senior lawyers, the dismissal of the petition with the clarification that the Tamil Nadu Reservation Act had not been gone into by the court would enable the State to implement the 69 per cent reservation subject to the various interim orders passed by the apex court from time to time. But as far as "quota" is concerned, the judgment abolishing the quotas would prevail. In respect of other States, the August 12 judgment would have to be enforced.

In its August 12 judgment, a seven-judge held that unaided minority and non-minority institutions had absolute rights to establish, administer and admit students of their choice to medicine, engineering and other professional courses without government interference.

The Bench gave this ruling while dealing with over 100 petitions filed by Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, the All-India Medical and Engineering Colleges' Association and other individual colleges. It said imposition of the State quota of seats or enforcing the reservation policy of the State for available seats in unaided professional institutions constituted a serious encroachment on the right and autonomy of the private institutions.

The Bench said "merely because the resources of the State in providing professional education are limited, private educational institutions, which intend to provide better professional education, cannot be forced by the State to make admissions available on the basis of reservation policy to less meritorious candidates." In its review petition, Tamil Nadu said the Reservation Act of 1993 provided for 69 per cent reservation in the State and "every educational institution even if it is unaided is to provide reservation."

This Act was already included in Schedule IX of the Constitution (to ensure that the validity of this Act is not challenged).

However, the Act was challenged and the matter was now pending adjudication before a nine-judge Bench.

During arguments, the seven-judge Bench made it clear that it was not going into the question of reservation and hence no arguments were advanced on the issue. Tamil Nadu had been implementing the Act for over a decade in all educational institutions. Since there was an error apparent on the face of the record, the impugned judgment required reconsideration, the review petition said.

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