There cannot be any reservation in qualifying examinations, says Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: "For qualifying examinations there cannot be any reservation," the Supreme Court clarified on Monday while hearing a plea seeking 10 per cent quota for the economically weaker section in Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET)-2019.

A vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna said that reservation of any class comes into play only during admissions.

"For qualifying examinations there cannot be any reservations. This is wholly misconceived. This (CTET) is merely a qualifying examination. The issue of reservation will come up only at the time of admission," the bench said.

When the counsel appearing for petitioner Rajneesh Kumar Pandey and others referred to the notification for CTET examination which is to be held on July 7, the bench shot back, "The notification for the examination does not give any reservation to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe either."

The bench, which dismissed the plea after making the observations, later agreed to hear it on May 16 after the lawyer appearing for the petitioner urged the court to consider the matter.

The petitioners, who claimed to be belonging to economically weaker section of society, are candidates aspiring to appear in CTET-2019.

"Recently the CBSE has published advertisement dated January 23, 2019 for conducting Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET), 2019 in which this benefit has not been given to the economically weaker section of the society and therefore the present writ petition is being filed to make sure that people covered under economically weaker section of the society are given similar benefit like other reserved category (SC, ST and OBC) starting with CTET-2019 advertisement," it said.

The petitioners in their plea challenged the notification issued by the CBSE on the ground of violation of the rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

The Constitution (One hundred and third amendment) Act, 2019 was passed by Parliament and came into force on January 16.

Under the amended Act, the Centre has provided for a 10 per cent reservation to the citizens from general category belonging to the economically weaker section of the society, in addition to the already existing reservation policy for the benefit of other reserved categories such as Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, Other Backward Class and Physically Handicapped.