Non-minority edu institutions can't have choice of students: SC

Updated on: Wednesday, May 18, 2011

The Supreme Court has held that non-minority educational institutions cannot claim to take in students of only their choice and struck down the provision of 100 per cent reservation for children of armed forces in the Army College of Medical Sciences (ACMS) in Delhi.

A Bench comprising Justices B Sudershan Reddy and S S Nijjar said such institutions would have to follow government policy of reservation to weaker section of society.

"The inherited social, educational, cultural, political and economic disadvantages of vast swaths of humanity in our country are propagated across generations. A system that predominantly results in giving access to only certain groups would necessarily work towards sustenance of those inequalities," the bench said.

It passed the order on petitions filed by the Indian Medical Association and students challenging the Delhi government's approval to admission process of ACMS for giving admission only to wards of serving and former Army personnel.

The notification issued by the Government permitting the Army College of Medical Sciences to allocate hundred per cent seats for admission to wards of Army personnel in accordance with the policy followed by the Indian Army is ultra vires and also unconstitutional," the bench said.

"To claim a right to distribute knowledge only to a few, who are selected on the basis of tests which do not reveal the true talents spread across perse groups, and communities in this country, is to destroy the very foundation by which such non-minority educational institutions are given access to knowledge," the court said.

"The knowledge that non-minority educational institutions seek to impart, is not knowledge that they have created. That knowledge was shared by people who have generated such knowledge out of love for humanity," the court said.

"To partake of knowledge, from the common pool, that is a gift of humanity, including our common ancestors, to all of humanity, and then to deny the responsibility to share it with the best amongst youngsters who are located in perse groups would be a betrayal of humanity," the court said.

Non-minority edu institutions can't have choice of students: SC

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