NEIL AURELIO NUNES & ORS. versus UNION OF INDIA & ORS

Citation: [2022] 11 S.C.R. 585 · Decided: 20-01-2022 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: D.Y. CHANDRACHUD

Cited by 4 judgment(s) · cites 14 · see the full citation network in Lexace

Judgment (excerpt)

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[2022] 11 S.C.R. 585
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NEIL AURELIO NUNES & ORS.
v.
UNION OF INDIA & ORS.
(Writ Petition (C) No. 961 of 2021)
JANUARY 20, 2022
[DR. DHANANJAYA Y CHANDRACHUD AND
A. S. BOPANNA, JJ.]
Constitution of India – Arts. 15(1), 15(4), 15(5), 16(1) and
16(4) – Reservation – National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET)
– Reservation for Other Backward Classes-OBC (non-creamy layer)
in the All-India Quota (AIQ) seats in NEET for undergraduate and
postgraduate medical courses – Held: Reservation for OBC
candidates in the AIQ seats for UG and PG medical and dental
courses is constitutionally valid – Articles 15(4) and 15 (5) are not
an exception to Article 15 (1), which itself sets out the principle of
substantive equality (including the recognition of existing
inequalities) – Merit cannot be reduced to narrow definitions of
performance in an open competitive examination which only
provides formal equality of opportunity – Open competitive
examinations do not reflect the social, economic and cultural
advantage that accrues to certain classes and contributes to their
success in such examinations – High scores in an examination are
not a proxy for merit – Merit should be socially contextualized and
reconceptualized as an instrument that advances social goods like
equality – In such a context, reservation is not at odds with merit
but furthers its distributive consequences – Articles 15(4) and 15(5)
employ group identification as a method through which substantive
equality can be achieved – This may lead to an incongruity where
certain individual members of an identified group that is being given
reservation may not be backward or individuals belonging to the
non-identified group may share certain characteristics of
backwardness with members of an identified group – The individual
difference may be a result of privilege, fortune, or circumstances
but it cannot be used to negate the role of reservation in remedying
the structural disadvantage that certain groups suffer – Challenge
to the constitutional validity of OBC reservation in AIQ seats
introduced through the notice dated 29 July 2021 is rejected.
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SUPREME COURT REPORTS
[2022] 11 S.C.R.
Constitution of India – Article 14, 15(1), 15(4), 16(4) –
Reservation – Merit – Plea of the petitioners that at the level of PG
courses, a high degree of skill and expertise is required thus, such
opportunities must be available to the most meritorious and providing
any reservation for PG seats would be detrimental to national interest
– Held: This is not a novel argument – Special provisions (including
reservation) made for the benefit of any class are not an exception
to the general principle of equality – Special provisions are a method
to ameliorate the structural inequalities that exist in the society,
without which, true or factual equality will remain illusory – The
binary of merit and reservation has now become superfluous once
Supreme Court has recognized the principle of substantive equality
as the mandate of Article 14 and as a facet of Articles 15 (1) and
16(1) – The narrow definition of merit (that is, decontextualised
individual achievement) hinders the realisation of substantive
equality.
Constitution of India – Reservation – Scheme of All-India
Quota (AIQ) seats – Development of – Petitioners argued that
Supreme Court in Pradeep Jain case and the subsequent cases has
held that there shall be no reservation in the AIQ seats – Held:
Scheme of AIQ was devised to allot seats in State-run medical and
dental institutions in which students from across the country could
compete – Observations in Pradeep Jain that the AIQ seats must be
filled by merit, must be read limited to merit vis-à-vis residence
reservation – Supreme Court in Pradeep Jain did not hold that
reservation in AIQ seats is impermissible – Evolution of the AIQ in
UG and PG medical and dental courses traced.
Constitution of India – Reservation – All-India Quota (AIQ)
seats – Power of executive to introduce reservation in AIQ seats –
Petitioners argued that the Union Government should have filed an
application before Supreme Court before notifying reservations in
the AIQ since the AIQ scheme is a creation of Supreme Court –
Held: Argument is erroneous – The Union Government in Abhay
Nath case had made a submission of its intention to provide
reservations in the AIQ for the SC and ST candidates since until
then in view of the confusion on demarcation of the seat matrix,
there was no cla

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