In Brief
This case upheld the constitutional validity of 27% OBC and 10% EWS reservation in All-India Quota (AIQ) seats for undergraduate and postgraduate medical and dental courses. The petitioners challenged the reservation as violating merit-based selection and contended that the rules were altered impermissibly after registration. The Court held that merit must be socially contextualized beyond narrow exam scores; reservation furthers substantive equality rather than contradicting merit. The Court rejected the Pradeep Jain precedent as limiting merit only to residence-based reservation, not other forms. The Union Government has constitutional power to introduce such reservation. The EWS criteria challenge was deferred for fuller hearing while allowing implementation for 2021-2022 admissions.
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