Jabalpur: The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Tuesday, in an interim order, stayed the state government’s ordinance increasing reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC) category to 27 per cent from the earlier 14 per cent. The Congress government in the state had issued an ordinance on March 8 increasing the reservation in the OBC category to 27 per cent.
A division bench of justices RS Jha and Sanjay Dwivedi Tuesday stayed the state government ordinance which increased the percentage of reservation for OBCs. Petitioners Ashita Dubey, Richa Pandey and Suman, all MBBS students who had appeared for NEET 2019 for admissions to post graduate medical courses, had challenged the state government’s ordinance on grounds that it violated provisions of
Article 16(4) of the Constitution, their counsel Aditya Sanghi said. The government’s quota move had led to reservation in the state reaching 63 per cent, a breach of the 50 per cent cap on reservation, the counsel said. The counselling for post graduate courses is scheduled to start from March 25, Sanghi said.
