NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday vacated its interim order directing the Centre to reserve 10 per cent of the seats for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes under the all-India quota in postgraduate medical admissions for 2006-2007.

A Bench consisting of Justices K.G. Balakrishnan, A.R. Lakshmanan and D.K. Jain accepted the submissions by Additional Solicitor-General Gopal Subramaniam, who said that this year should be free of reservation for the SCs/STs under the 50 per cent all-India quota. Such reservation was not provided for in the prospectus.

The Bench passed the interim order on April 24 on a writ petition filed by 14 doctors challenging the method of calculation of seats reserved for the SCs/STs.

On Friday Mr. Subramaniam said that as per the earlier apex court judgment the 50 per cent all-India quota was exclusive of reservation. Reservation was contemplated only under the 50 per cent State quota. Many SC/ST students did not take the test for the all-India quota because there was no reservation. He said the interim order to provide 10 per cent seats for the SC/STs would create problems.

Quota next year

However, the Government was conscious of its constitutional obligations to provide reservation for them under the all-India quota and it would do so next year.

The petitioners contended that as per the apex court judgment 50 per cent of the postgraduate medical seats were reserved for the all-India quota and 50 per cent for the State quota. It was made clear that the 50 per cent all-India quota would be calculated after deducting the number of seats set apart for the reserved categories.

But contrary to this judgment, the admission bulletin for this year said the SC/ST quota would be calculated on the basis of the 50 per cent seats available after deducting the 50 per cent all-India quota.

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