Order
1. These appeals by the State of Tamil Nadu and its authorities are directed against the judgment and order of the High Court at Madras allowing writ petitions filed before it by the respondents. The High Court held that the reservation in favour of in-service candidates for the academic year 1992-93 in respect of all disciplines including Anaesthesia in post graduate medical courses (both diploma and degree), should be confined to fifty per cent. The High Court also held that the awarding of two additional marks, instead of one additional mark for each completed year of service, to candidates who had rendered the service in primary health centres was unconstitutional and that, therefore, selection should be made without taking this extra mark into account.
2. Learned counsel for the appellants submitted that the appellants had taken a policy decision in respect of the quota of seats in postgraduate medical colleges available to it. It had reserved sixty per cent of such seats in all disciplines, excluding Anaesthesia, where the reservation was eighty per cent, in favour of candidates who were in the State Government's service, having regard to the fact that the public benefit was the State's primary concern and it was the in-service candidates who provided it. The balance of forty per cent had been left for candidates other than in-service candidates and this was adequate and ought not to have been interfered with. It was also submitted that awarding one extra mark to in-service candidates who had served in rural health centres was justified, having regard to the fact that they would return to the rural areas and benefit the rural population after obtaining post graduate qualifications.
3. Learned counsel for the respondents drew our attention to the fact that the High Court had in petitions for earlier years upheld the reservation of sixty per cent for in-service candidates while requiring the appellants to review the actual requirement. The High Court noted that no attention had been paid by the appellants to this direction. Learned counsel was right in saying that there was, therefore, no basis for the assumption that the State needed to reserve sixty per cent of the seats and not less for in-service candidates. Indeed, it appears that even in the counter filed by the appellants before the High Court no statistical data had been laid which would justify, even prima facie, the reservation of sixty per cent. A policy decision of this nature must be backed by some material and the High Court had no material before it.
4. Insofar as the additional mark awarded to in-service candidates serving in rural areas is concerned, the judgment of this Court in Dr Dinesh Kumar v. Motilal Nehru Medical College (1986) 3 SCR 345 is the answer to the argument that in-service candidates serving in rural areas will, after acquisition of post graduate degrees, return to rural areas. The observations in this behalf have been cited by the High Court, and in our view, rightly.
5. We must record that learned counsel for the appellants did not press for the reservation of eighty per cent of the seats in Anaesthesia for in-service candidates but submitted that even there the reservation should be restricted to sixty per cent, as in other disciplines.
6. In our view, the High Court was right in the view that it took, that no reservation beyond fifty per cent is ordinarily contemplated and this percentage is what the High Court allowed. In striking down the additional mark for in-service candidates serving in rural areas, the High Court followed the decision of this Court.
7. We trust that the appellants shall appoint a highly qualified committee to determine from year to year what, in fact, is the percentagewise reservation requisite for in-service candidates having regard to the then prevailing situation, and that the percentage of fifty per cent shall, if found appropriate, be reduced accordingly.
8. In result, the judgment and order under appeal is affirmed, and the appeals are dismissed. No costs.