"Constitution May Require Rewriting": Court Over Quota In Medical Courses

The first bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday wondered as to why not the Constitution be re-written in such a manner to provide 7.5 per cent reservation to students from government schools alone in the matter of admission in medical courses.

When the batch of PILs and writ petitions challenging the legislation of the previous AIADMK government providing the reservation for students from government schools came up for further hearing today, the bench of Chief Justice MN Bhandari and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy orally observed that the Constitution may require re-writing to suit the provision of such a reservation based on study institution-wise.

While some petitions questioned the legality of the legislation, others sought the extension of the benefit to the students studying in government aided schools also. Few others wanted the government to include private and minority institutions too in the reservation bracket.

The senior counsel representing the PILs contended that the exclusive reservation would affect the opportunity of the meritorious students studying in other types of schools. There cannot be a discrimination and different level of play field to the students studying in government, government aided and private schools, which imparted one and same State Board syllabus and were provided with the same infrastructural facilities, they added.

The matter stands adjourned till March 17.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)