Supreme Court defers hearing on ambiguity in OBC quota admission

The Supreme Court today declined to give any immediate direction on discrepancies in implementation of the reservation policy relating to OBC quota in central universities and posted the matter for hearing on July 4.

A vacation bench of Justice P Sathasivam and Justice AK Patnaik directed that the matter be listed on Monday before the regular bench where the matter was already pending.

A bench headed by Justice RV Raveendran had been seized of the petition which pointed out the confusion prevailing in several universities, including Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Delhi University (DU) where admission process was in full swing.

The regular bench will decide whether the cut-off marks for the OBC candidates should be 10% less than the marks fixed for the general category candidates or should it be 10% relaxation in the minimum eligibility criteria.

The petitioner PV Indersan, a former professor of IIT Madras, had sought implementation of an earlier apex court verdict by which the constitutional validity of 27% quota for OBC's in the Central Universities was upheld by it on April 10, 2008.

The vacation bench was informed that the three judges in a majority verdict had held that the cut-off marks for OBCs should not be less than five per cent or 10% as against the general category candidates.