Mathematics of reservation system By Supreme Court

Reservation in our country is a kind of affirmative action, where by a percentage of seats in employment and institutions are reserved for socially, educationally backward classes, economically weaker sections etc. Reservation is a kind of positive discrimination created to promote equality among marginalised sections, so as to protect them from social and historical Injustice. The reservation of these marginalised sections are protected by articles 15 (clause 3 4 and 5) and article 16 (clause 1 and 4). The reservation provided by the constitution of India to these marginalised sections of society is classified into two typesie vertical and horizontal reservation.
Vertical reservation: which is also called social reservation, provided to SC ST and other backward classes under articles 15 ( clause 4 and 5) and 16 ( clause 4).
Horizontal reservation: This is also called special reservation provided to women, ex servicemen physically disabled persons etc under articles 15 ( clause 3) and 16 ( clause 1). The supreme court observed reservation is not an exception to right to equality. It is a facet of article 16. Which fosters and furthers the idea of equality of opportunity to unprivileged and deprived class of citizens. How vertical and horizontal reservation is applied simultaneously, the honourable supreme court has explained it in various landmark judgments. In the judgment of IndraSawheny and ors VS Union of India 1992 and SarovYadav and ors VS state of Uttar Pradesh, supreme court held that, each vertical reserved category shall have by law a fixed percentage of seats in public employment, education institutions etc. The share of particular reserved category belong to that only category and seats must be filled by the candidates of that reserved category by the merit. The unreserved category is not reserved for any group of people or class. The seats in unreserved category are open to all irrespective of the category to which a candidate belongs. Reserved category candidates who gets selected in unreserved category by their merit are not to be counted in the reservation pool. Only those candidates are to be counted in the reservation pool who get selected against the reserved category quota. The methodology of horizontal reservation do not go on same lines as that of vertical reservation. The horizontal reservation is applied separately in each vertical category not across the board I.e, in each vertical category is cut by equal percentage to fill up horizontal reservations. No vertical category shall have more than fixed horizontal reservation seats. The number of horizontal reservation seats that can be filled up in a particular vertical category depends upon the absolute number of seats to that vertical category. No vertical category should have lesser percentage of candidates who are eligible for horizontal reservation unless there is shortfall of such candidates. Similarly no vertical category shall have greater percentage of candidates who can avail horizontal reservation unless they get selected in a particular vertical category by their merit without the benefit of horizontal reservation. The mathematics of vertical and horizontal reservation can be better understood by this hypothetical example, let’s assume 200 vacancies are to be filled for a particular post. There is total 50% vertical reservation for different vertical reserved categories, along with 10% horizontal reservation for women, ESM ,PWD. The number of candidates to be selected in each vertical category and the number of horizontal reservation to be filled in each vertical category is shown in table.
The unreserved category is not reserved for any group of people or class. The seats in unreserved category are open to all irrespective of the category to which a candidate belong.
One of the issues with the mathematics of reservation system that came before Supreme Court was the treatment for meritorious reserved category candidate once they migrate from unreserved category to their respective reserved categories to get preferred cadre/post/ position. A constitution bench of chief justice K.G Balak Balakrishnan and Justices S.H. Kapadia, R.V. Raveendran, B. Sudershan Reddy and P. Sathasivam held that The reserved candidates belonging to the OBC/ SC/ST categories who are selected on merit and placed in the list of general/unreserved category can choose to migrate to the respective reserved category at the time of allocation of services. The question before honourable court was who shall get the seat left out by the meritorious reserved candidate in unreserved category. The honourable court held that the seat left out in unreserved category shall be filled by candidate next in merit in the unreserved category. The meritorious reserved candidate should be counted in the reserved pool. Once such migration occurs means he/she has utilised the benefit of reserved category. In recent judgment TripurariSharan and ors VS Rajit Kumar and ors 2018 honourable supreme court held that their is distinction between qualifying through a common entrance test for securing admission in institutions and common competitive examination held for filling up vacancies in various services. In case of admission to institue a meritorious reserved candidate can migrate to his preferred institute, where a seat in his category is reserved. Though admitted against a reserved seat, for the purpose of computation of percentage of reservation, he/she shall be deemed to have admitted as an unreserved category candidate. In the case of filling up of posts based on common competitive selection process in different services, situation will be entirely different, when an MRC opts to move to the reserved category, which he belongs to, for getting a service/post of his choice. In such a situation, the candidate, at the bottom of list of the concerned category, will have to move out and the slot, in the general merit list, will stand vacated, because of migration of the MRC will have to be filled up from general merit list. Otherwise, if the open seats are allowed to be filled up by candidates of reserved categories, it will result into extending the benefit of reservation beyond fifty percent, which is constitutionally impermissible.
(The author is a Ph D Scholar IUST Pulwama. Views are exclusively his own)

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