DMK moves Madras HC against Centre's refusal to implement 50% OBC quota for state-surrendered medical seats

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has filed a plea in the Madras High Court protesting the Centre's failure to implement OBC reservation for state-surrendered medical seats in non-Central Government Medical colleges (DMK v. Union of India and ors)..The development comes in the wake of the Supreme Court directing on Thursday that such pleas be moved before the Madras High Court instead of the top Court. .DMK moves Supreme Court against Centre for refusing to implement 50% OBC Reservation in Tamil Nadu's Share of All India Medical Quota seats.As pointed out in the plea filed by DMK's TKS Elagovan, 15% of medical seats are surrendered by the State Government for Undergraduate and diploma courses and 50% seats are surrendered for PG courses to the All India medical quota..It is further noted that applicable regulations, the reservation policy for these medical seats should be as per the laws prevailing in the State or Union Territory where the medical college is situated in..As per Tamil Nadu's 1994 Act, 69% reservation is provided for Other Backward Classes (OBC), Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) students, of which reservation for the OBC (including BC and MBC) students are about 50%..However, it has been contended that the Medical CounciI of India (MCI), the Dental Council of India and other authorities have committed gross illegality and injustice in failing to implement the reservation for OBC in the admissions for the State-surrendered medical seats..Referring to medical admissions for the year 2020-2021, it is stated that out of 1,919 seats available, about 960 seats were surrendered by Tamil Nadu..Applying the State reservation policy, about 430 seats ought to have been reserved for OBC students in PG admissions. Similarly, about 395 of the 795 surrendered seats for UG and diploma courses should have been reserved for OBC students. However, with the failure to implement the reservation policy, the plea highlights that these many OBC students have lost out. .“No OBC reservations are given in these State surrendered seats to the All India Quota in non-central Government medical institutions. The net result is that all States are losing OBC reservations in the seats surrendered by them to the All India Quota to the detriment of their MBC/OBC students.”DMK contends..It is argued that if the Centre's reservation policy of 27% OBC reservation is applicable to medical colleges under the Central Government, the State's reservation policy would apply to non-Central medical institutions i.e. State Government and private medical and dental colleges..In any case, the DMK has also pointed out that even the Centre's 27% OBC reservation policy was also not followed with respect to the State-surrendered seats in the All India Quota this year. .A grievance is raised that such denial of lawful reservations has led to a huge loss for OBC students. It is argued that the goal of social equality would become a myth if their grievance is not heard.."It is judicially recognised that reservations are not poverty alleviation programmes but rather are more in the nature of social justice programmes to uplift community which have not had access to education or employment and consequently do not have representation in the services of the State or in upper echelons of society", the petition states further..In this backdrop, the DMK has urged the High Court to issue directions to ensure the implementation of 50% OBC (BC and MBC) and SC/ST reservations in the state-surrendered seats in UG, PG and diploma medical and dental courses for the academic year 2020-2021 in Tamil Nadu..The petition has been filed through P Wilson Associates. .An allied plea was moved earlier this month by the Dravidar Kazhagam Party as well. .Read the Petition: