NEW DELHI: The Centre on Tuesday said irreparable loss would be caused if the stay on implementation of 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Classes continued. Its application before the Supreme Court said many institutions had already begun the process of inviting applications and conducting entrance tests and interviews in accordance with the time schedule, on the basis of the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admissions) Act 2006 Act (without excluding any qualified candidate belonging to the socially and educationally backward classes/OBC). But the admission process in several institutions "has been thrown out of gear and widespread anxiety and confusion prevail among backward class candidates and in institutions."

The stay on the operation of the Act or any other interim order "has serious implications and may cause irreparable loss as the admission process in various Central universities/institutions has already started and another one academic year will be lost, in case the stay order continues."

It said, "several hundred OBC candidates would lose their seats and there is no assurance that in the event that the petitions [challenging the constitutional validity of the Act] were to be dismissed, they would be able to qualify again. The loss to these candidates is irreparable. On the contrary, there is no such loss to any section of candidates admitted to the general category seats."

The Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, which put in place a mechanism for implementing the provisions of the 2006 Act, had on March 14 itself sent admission letters to nine OBO candidates. "One candidate has in fact quit his job and also made arrangements for payment of fees. The IITs Chennai and Delhi had, for the joint entrance test for the two-year MBA, given interview letters to candidates belonging to the OBC category and even conducted interviews but have held back letters of offer of admission on account of the interim order of this court."

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