NEET PG 2023 | Meritorious Reserved Category Candidates Entitled To Reserved Disciplines If Preferred Choice Unavailable In Open Merit: J&K High Court

The Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has recently ruled that a Meritorious Reserved Category Candidate who secured admission in NEET-PG from the open merit category should be granted allocation to a discipline from the reserved category if their preferred choice is unavailable in the open merit category. Highlighting the mandate of Rule 17 of the J&K Reservation Rules Justice Sanjay Dhar further clarified that the leftover discipline/stream/college in the open merit category shall thereafter be allocated to the reserved category candidate who would get selected consequent upon the reserved category candidate having been selected in open merit category. Their challenge to the provisional selection list 2023 was based on the violation of J&K Reservation Rules, asserting that they had been unfairly denied preferred disciplines/seats in favour of reserved category candidates with lower merit. Adv Pirzada argued that the interpretation and application of Rule 17 by the respondents were erroneous, placing Meritorious Reserved Category candidates at a disadvantage compared to reserved category candidates with lower merit. In response to BOPEE's justification, which was presented in the form of a legal opinion from the Law department whereby it had been advised that the advantages of Rule 17 needed to be expanded to include meritorious candidates from the EWS category, Justice Dhar observed, “As the seats earmarked for the EWS category are not available in all the institutions, as such, the applicability of Rule 17 of the Reservation Rules in the manner it was done in the previous past was causing imbalance and confusion,” It added, “The logic projected by the respondents for deviating in applicability of Rule 17 of the Reservation Rules does not appear to be sound for the reason that on ground it has resulted in hardship to meritorious category candidates, inasmuch as the petitioners are definitely more meritorious than those category candidates who have been allocated disciplines/seats regarding which the petitioners had given their preference”.