SHILLONG : The High Court of Meghalaya on Tuesday disposed of a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by North Shillong MLA Adelbert Nongrum challenging the application of the State’s 1972 Job Reservation Policy for allocating state-quota seats in professional courses.
The petition questioned the use of the employment reservation policy for admissions to courses including MBBS, engineering, paramedical, architecture, agriculture and veterinary sciences. During the hearing, Advocate General Amit Kumar submitted that the PIL did not comply with the mandatory rules governing public interest litigation. Following the submission, counsel for the petitioner sought permission to withdraw the case with liberty to either submit a representation before the appropriate authority or file a fresh petition in accordance with the prescribed rules..
The High Court allowed the request and disposed of the PIL as withdrawn while granting the liberty sought by the petitioner.In his petition, Nongrum argued that Meghalaya has not framed a separate reservation policy specifically for admissions to educational institutions. He contended that the reservation categories and percentage currently followed for professional course admissions have been adopted from the State’s job reservation policy.
The PIL further claimed that reservation is an exception to the constitutional principle of equality and cannot be implemented without a proper legal framework. It argued that applying the employment reservation policy to academic admissions without separate legal backing is unconstitutional.