http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Fill_vacant_OBC_seats_by_Oct-end_SC/articleshow/3596110.cms
Fill vacant OBC seats by Oct-end, says SC 15 Oct 2008, 0015 hrs IST,TNN NEW DELHI: General category students who missed admission to premier institutes like IIM by a whisker will get a fresh chance as the Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the filling up of vacant seats under 27% OBC quota in all central educational institutions (CEIs) by October-end. Trying hard to project the HRD ministry's confusion before a constitution bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices Arijit Pasayat, C K Thakker, R V Raveendran and Dalveer Bhandari, Solicitor General G E Vahanvati said filling the vacant seats in case of staggered implementation of the 27% OBC quota could cause a problem. There was no confusion in the minds of the judges, said senior advocate K K Venugopal appearing for petitioner educationist P V Indiresan. They were unanimous that the judgment was categoric that all vacant seats had to revert to general category, he said. The bench asked the SG: "Even if you implement the OBC quota in a staggered manner, how can you carry forward the vacant seats? Admission to each academic year is unique. Where is the question of backlog vacancy for backward classes?" "If you carry forward the vacancies, the infrastructure you have created along with the increase in the seats would go waste and that is definitely not the intention of the judgment," it said. Realising that it was an uphill task to convince the bench, the SG immediately said that the government would not press further once the Bench has clarified the position leaving no room for confusion. When it came to filling the vacant seats, the SG said that it would be difficult to revert these back to the general category for this 2008-09 academic session. But the bench brushed aside the objection and directed filling up of the vacant OBC quota seats with eligible general category candidates by October end. To maintain the standards of the institutes and not to make merit a casualty, two SC judges had in their common judgment ordered that the cut-off for OBC students should not go below 5% of the cut-off for general category, while a third judge had said it should not be more than 10%.
