PANAJI
The Bombay High Court at Goa on Friday declined to grant interim relief to a group of medical students who had approached the High Court challenging the Goa government’s decision dated 5/5/2023 to provide reservations of 2% for SC, 12% for ST and 27% for OBC at the Post Graduate level in Goa Medical College.
The High Court, while ruling that arguable issues were raised in the petition said that “something more than the usual prima facie case must be made out by the Petitioners to secure an interim relief.”
“Grant of such a stay would entail irreversible consequences because, even if we were to later dismiss this Petition upon deeper consideration of the issues involved, no admissions could be granted to the reserved category candidates deprived of admission for this academic year, given the almost inviolable cut-off dates prescribed by the MCI,” the bench of Justices M S Sonak and Bharat Deshpande, said.
“The expert committee took notice of the fact that in the last 20 years in the GMC, no reservations were provided at the PG level and, therefore, hardly 0.03% of SC, 2% of ST and 6.4% of OBC candidates were admitted to the PG courses from the State quota. This was a relevant consideration. The expert committee also considered that the Goa Government provides reservations of 2% for SC, 12% for ST and 27% for OBC for services and admissions to Undergraduate level. The expert committee and the State Government could undoubtedly be presumed to possess population statistics, including the breakup of the SC, ST, and OBC populations,” the High Court observed.
“Based on this material, the decision to provide reservations at the PG level, at least to the same extent, cannot be prima facie styled as so outrageous that no person or authority, having applied its mind, could have arrived at it,” the High Court said.
However, the High Court admitted that minutes of the expert committee meeting held on 3/2/2023 and 6/4/2023 “leave much to be desired.”
“In particular, the minutes do not reflect much consideration of the issues flagged by the Dean, GMC, in the letter dated 16/3/2020 concerning reservations at the PG level at GMC,” the High Court observed.
On the argument that the decision was taken after the admission process was started, the High Court said that since the impugned decision (was taken) dated 5/5/2023 (published in the official gazette on 11/5/2023), the State Government had already made it known to the candidates that there would be reservations for the PG courses in GMC.
“Only the rules in this regard were amended on 8/8/2023. The original and amended rules are not statutory but are made by exercising executive power. Therefore, at least, prima facie, the argument about the change of rules after the commencement of the admission process does not appear to be a strong enough ground for granting interim relief,” the High Court also said.
“The scope of judicial review in such matters is also not very expansive. Whether or not to provide for reservations at the PG level is a policy decision. The formation of opinion by the State in this regard is mainly subjective. However, in forming such an opinion, the existence of circumstances relevant to the formation of opinion is a ine qua non. At least, prima facie, this does not appear to be a case where the opinion was backed by no material whatsoever or that the same was entirely based on irrelevant or extraneous material. Typically, sufficiency or adequacy of material is not the ground for exercising the power of judicial review in such matters. This court certainly does not act as an appellate authority in such cases,” the High Court also said.
