The Evening Wrap: Supreme Court upholds validity of OBC quota in NEET admissions

The Supreme Court on Thursday pronounced its decision upholding the constitutional validity of providing 27% quota to Other Backward Classes (OBC) in NEET All India Quota (AIQ) seats for undergraduate and postgraduate medical courses, saying “reservation is not at odds with merit.” A Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud observed that ‘merit’ could not be narrowed to the limit of success in open competitive exams. The merit of a person was a sum total of “lived experiences” and his or her struggle to overcome cultural and social setbacks. “Merit cannot be reduced to narrow definitions of performance in an open competitive examination, which only provides formal equality of opportunities. Current competencies are assessed by competent examinations but are not reflective of excellence, capability and potential of an individual, which are also affected by lived experiences, individual character, etc,” Justice Chandrachud read out from the judgment. In a significant victory for States such as Tamil Nadu, the court confirmed their power to make “special provisions” and provide reservation in educational admissions, whether in aided or unaided institutions, and government jobs for the advancement of “any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes”. Reading out excerpts from the judgment, Justice Chandrachud said the power of the State governments to provide reservations under Article 15 (4) and (5) of the Constitution was not an “exception” to Article 15 (1), which enshrines the mandate that “the State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them”. The court held that the power of the State government to craft reservation for the OBC amplified the principle of “substantive equality” manifested through Article 15 (1). Exams did not reflect how social, economic and cultural advantages that accrued to certain classes contributed to their success in them, the court noted. “Examinations are not a proxy for merit. Merit should be socially contexualised and re-conceptualised... Reservation is not at odds with merit but furthers its distributive impact,” Justice Chandrachud observed. The court reasoned that material affluence of certain individual members of a socially backward group or ‘creamy layer’ could not be used against the entire group to deny it the benefits of reservation. “It may be that individual members of an identified group which are being given reservation are not backward or individuals belonging to non-identified group may share characteristics of a backward group with members of an identified group. The individual difference may be a result of privilege, fortune and circumstances but it cannot be used to negate the role of circumstances,” the court explained. The court further confirmed that there was no need for the Centre to have got the prior consent of the Supreme Court before introducing OBC quota in the AIQ seats under NEET. The petitioners, several NEET aspirants, had argued that since the top court had limited reservation to 50% in the Indira Sawhney judgment, the government should have first applied to the court before tinkering with the quota calculations. “Providing reservation to AIQ is a policy decision that would not be subject to judicial review,” the court underscored. The court also rejected the argument made by the petitioners that the Centre changed the “rules of the game midway”, well into the middle of the NEET admission process. “The government introduced OBC/EWS quota before the counselling. Thus, it cannot be said that the rules of the game have been changed. Reservation would be notified by the counselling authority before the beginning of the counselling process. Therefore, the candidates applying for NEET PG are not provided any information on the distribution of the seat matrix. Such information is provided by the counselling authority only after the counselling session is to begin,” the court reasoned. The judgment was based on petitions filed by doctors in August 2021 against a July 29, 2021, notification issued by the Directorate General of Health Services of the Ministry of Health implementing 27% and 10% reservation for OBC and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), respectively, while filling up 15% undergraduate and 50% postgraduate AIQ seats under NEET. This part of the judgment concerning the OBC quota provided in the July 29, 2021 notification is final. Questions on the validity of the 10% quota for the EWS would be heard finally in the third week of March. Goa Assembly elections: BJP announces first list of 34 candidates; Manohar Parrikar’s son Utpal’s name missing The BJP parliamentary board on Thursday announced its first list of 34 candidates for the coming Goa Assembly elections. The party has denied the late Goa Chief Minister Mahohar Parrikar’s son, Utpal Parrikar, a ticket from Panaji, deciding instead to stick with incumbent MLA Atanasio ‘Babush’ Monserrate. Barring a gap of two years, the seat had been held by Manohar Parrikar from 1994 till his death in March 2019. “We have given Utpal two other options to contest, one of which he has already refused earlier. All of us feel that he should accept the second option,” BJP’s Goa election in charge Devendra Fadnavis said in Delhi. He asserted that the BJP “has always respected Manohar Parrikar’s family.” Utpal has been particularly piqued that the party leadership preferred Monserrate – a three-time MLA and former Minister with criminal antecedents. Monserrate, an ex-Congressman, was one of the key players who had engineered the defection of 10 Congress MLAs into the BJP in July 2019. The BJP is contesting all 40 seats for the first time in the coastal State. The list was decided on after hectic deliberations that dragged through Wednesday and extended into the night. Spouses of BJP leaders have also been given ticket, notably in the case of Monserrate and Health Minister Viswajit Rane, who will be contesting from Valpoi, the bastion of the Rane clan. In a bid to rebuff reports that the saffron party was ‘sidelining’ Christian minorities, the party has included nine Catholic candidates – the maximum number fielded by it thus far and 11 other backward caste (OBC) candidates. The party under Manohar Parrikar had fielded six Christian candidates in 2012, and eight in 2017. Recognise ‘Hinduphobia’ and violence against Buddhists, Sikhs too: Indian envoy to U.N. Calling for the United Nations to recognise ‘Hinduphobia’ along with other acts of religious hatred against Buddhism and Sikhism, India’s U.N. envoy T.S.Tirumurti said that the U.N.’s latest Global Counter-Terrorism strategy passed last year is full of flaws and is selective, and could reverse gains from the global consensus in the ‘war on terror’ post 9/11. In remarks indicating the government’s discomfort with new terms being added to the definition of terrorism, he also said that terms like “violent nationalism” and “right wing extremism” must not be included to resolutions on terrorism, as they would “dilute” them. “In the past two years, several member states, driven by their political, religious and other motivations, have been trying to label terrorism into categories such as racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism, violent nationalism, right wing extremism, etc. This tendency is dangerous for several reasons,” Tirumurti said, delivering a keynote address at a virtual conference organised by the Delhi-based Global Counter-Terrorism Centre (GCTC), where he said he spoke as Ambassador of India to the U.N. and not in his capacity as Chair of the Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) at the U.N. Security Council for 2022. India assumed the chair of the CTC this month, and Tirumurti’s strong remarks suggest that India will oppose any expansion of the terms that are included in the UNSC’s discussions on terrorism, until it demits the UNSC seat in December this year. Tirumurti pointed out that only religious phobias against “Abrahamic religions”: Islam, Christianity and Judaism had been named in the “Global Counter Terrorism Strategy’s” 7th review passed by the U.N. General Assembly in June 2021. “The emergence of contemporary forms of religiophobia, especially anti-Hindu, anti-Buddhist and anti-Sikh phobias is a matter of serious concern and needs attention of the U.N. and all member states to address this threat,” Tirumurti said, without mentioning any examples. White House warns Russia on invading Ukraine after Biden seems to suggest small incursions will be tolerated The White House clarified that U.S. President Joe Biden’s opposition to Russian aggression on Ukraine after Biden appeared to suggest during a press conference that a small incursion by Russia would be tolerated. In a statement released after the press conference, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that any incursion would be met with a “severe” response from the U.S. and its allies. “President Biden has been clear with the Russian President: If any Russian military forces move across the Ukrainian border, that’s a renewed invasion, and it will be met with a swift, severe, and united response from the United States and our Allies,” Psaki said. She added that paramilitary and cyber attacks by Russia would also be met with reciprocal action. Tensions between the West and Moscow have soared as Russia has massed an estimated 100,000 troops along Ukraine’s borders. Earlier on January 19, Biden had told reporters during a press conference to mark his first anniversary in office that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), a military alliance of the West, was united in its opposition to the idea of Russia invading Ukraine, but qualified it to say the response would depend on the size of the incursion. “It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion, and then we [ NATO allies] end up having a fight about what to do and not do etc., “Biden said. “ But if they actually do what they’re capable of doing … it is going to be a disaster for Russia, if they further invade Ukraine and that our allies and partners are ready to impose severe cost and significant harm on Russia and the Russian economy,” he had said. Biden said he had conveyed to Putin (the two held a telephone call in December) that he would fortify NATO’s eastern flank if Russia went into Ukraine. He also said that Russia would prevail in the long run over Ukraine, if it invaded the country, but there would be a heavy cost. He said economic sanctions would involve a ban on transactions in dollar denominated assets. In a draft security agreement Moscow sent to Western countries in December, it had proposed that NATO not expand to include Ukraine. Another Russian demand was that NATO not deploy weapons or forces in countries that became NATO members after May 1997. Asked later during the press interaction if he had effectively given Putin “permission” to make a small incursion into Ukraine, Biden said, “ …It’s very important that we keep everyone in NATO on the same page. And that’s what I’m spending a lot of time doing.” There are differences within NATO on what countries are willing to do depending on what scenario plays out, Biden said. In terms of calibrating a response, he cited the example of cyber ops being countered with similar tactics. Asked if he has made a determination that Putin has decided to invade Ukraine, Biden said that Putin has not yet, he believed, made the decision and that he is calculating the short and long-term consequences for Russia. Court orders FIR against Gurugram hospital, two doctors for leaving cotton inside women’s stomach A Gurugram court has ordered the registration of an FIR on the charge of medical negligence for leaving a cotton swab in the abdomen of a woman during the birth of her baby after a caesarean. The court of Gurugram chief metropolitan magistrate gave the order on January 18 on a complaint by the woman’s husband, whose pleas earlier for the registration of a criminal case against Shiva Hospital in sector 12 was turned down by the police. In his complaint to the court, the woman’s husband Diwas Rai, a Darjeeling native living here at Sikandarpur with his wife Swastika, said his wife was found pregnant in April 2020. “There was a lockdown due to Covid and I had lost my job. In such a situation, I did not have money and took my wife to the government Anganwadi centre. The Anganwadi worker asked me to take my wife to Shiva Hospital in Sector-12,” he said in his complaint to the court. “As I took my wife to Shiva Hospital, the doctors operated upon her on November 16, 2020 and a baby girl was born and the hospital charged ₹30,000 from me,” he said. Rai alleged that right after the delivery, his wife started having abdominal pain and swelling with red marks on her stomach, following which he again took her to the hospital where doctors just gave her some vitamins and other medicines to reduce pain. But as the medicines given by the Shiva Hospital doctors did not work, Rai took her to another hospital where doctors suspected that she might be having issues in her stomach and began another course of treatment. “As my wife still did not get any relief and lost her weight by 16 kg while suffering all the pain that started post-delivery, I took her to a third hospital which advised a CT-Scan for my wife, following which she was found having some cotton swab-like articles in her abdomen,” Rai said. He added in his complaint that after he reported the matter to Shiva Hospital, they first ignored the findings but later sent an ambulance to my home and got my wife picked up and admitted to the hospital without my knowledge and consent. “At the hospital, they made her sign some blank forms and operated upon her and removed the swab,” said Rai. “As I went to the police, they ignored my complaint,” Rai added. On the court’s order, the police, however, has now lodged an FIR at the Sector 14 police station of Gurugram against Dr. Poonam Yadav and Dr. Anurag Yadav of Shiva hospital under sections 417 (punishment for cheating), 336 (act endangering life or personal safety of others), and 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) of the Indian Penal Code. Other IPC sections invoked in the FIR included sections 338 (act endangering life or personal safety of others), 506 (criminal intimidation), 509 (insult to the modesty of a woman) and 34 (common intention) of IPC at Sector 14 police station. Police said they are investigating the case. Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 3,84,11,373 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 4,88,280. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 20 JANUARY 2022 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( Supreme Court upholds validity of OBC quota in NEET admissions The Supreme Court on Thursday pronounced its decision [upholding the constitutional validity of providing 27% quota to Other Backward Classes (OBC) in NEET All India Quota (AIQ) seats]( for undergraduate and postgraduate medical courses, saying “reservation is not at odds with merit.” A Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud observed that ‘merit’ could not be narrowed to the limit of success in open competitive exams. The merit of a person was a sum total of “lived experiences” and his or her struggle to overcome cultural and social setbacks. [A view of Supreme Court in New Delhi. File photo]  “Merit cannot be reduced to narrow definitions of performance in an open competitive examination, which only provides formal equality of opportunities. Current competencies are assessed by competent examinations but are not reflective of excellence, capability and potential of an individual, which are also affected by lived experiences, individual character, etc,” Justice Chandrachud read out from the judgment. In a significant victory for States such as Tamil Nadu, the court confirmed their power to make “special provisions” and provide reservation in educational admissions, whether in aided or unaided institutions, and government jobs for the advancement of “any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes”. Reading out excerpts from the judgment, Justice Chandrachud said the power of the State governments to provide reservations under Article 15 (4) and (5) of the Constitution was not an “exception” to Article 15 (1), which enshrines the mandate that “the State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them”. The court held that the power of the State government to craft reservation for the OBC amplified the principle of “substantive equality” manifested through Article 15 (1). Exams did not reflect how social, economic and cultural advantages that accrued to certain classes contributed to their success in them, the court noted. “Examinations are not a proxy for merit. Merit should be socially contexualised and re-conceptualised... Reservation is not at odds with merit but furthers its distributive impact,” Justice Chandrachud observed. The court reasoned that material affluence of certain individual members of a socially backward group or ‘creamy layer’ could not be used against the entire group to deny it the benefits of reservation. “It may be that individual members of an identified group which are being given reservation are not backward or individuals belonging to non-identified group may share characteristics of a backward group with members of an identified group. The individual difference may be a result of privilege, fortune and circumstances but it cannot be used to negate the role of circumstances,” the court explained. The court further confirmed that there was no need for the Centre to have got the prior consent of the Supreme Court before introducing OBC quota in the AIQ seats under NEET. The petitioners, several NEET aspirants, had argued that since the top court had limited reservation to 50% in the Indira Sawhney judgment, the government should have first applied to the court before tinkering with the quota calculations. “Providing reservation to AIQ is a policy decision that would not be subject to judicial review,” the court underscored. The court also rejected the argument made by the petitioners that the Centre changed the “rules of the game midway”, well into the middle of the NEET admission process. “The government introduced OBC/EWS quota before the counselling. Thus, it cannot be said that the rules of the game have been changed. Reservation would be notified by the counselling authority before the beginning of the counselling process. Therefore, the candidates applying for NEET PG are not provided any information on the distribution of the seat matrix. Such information is provided by the counselling authority only after the counselling session is to begin,” the court reasoned. The judgment was based on petitions filed by doctors in August 2021 against a July 29, 2021, notification issued by the Directorate General of Health Services of the Ministry of Health implementing 27% and 10% reservation for OBC and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), respectively, while filling up 15% undergraduate and 50% postgraduate AIQ seats under NEET. This part of the judgment concerning the OBC quota provided in the July 29, 2021 notification is final. Questions on the validity of the 10% quota for the EWS would be heard finally in the third week of March. [underlineimg]  Goa Assembly elections: BJP announces first list of 34 candidates; Manohar Parrikar’s son Utpal’s name missing The BJP parliamentary board on Thursday announced its first list of 34 candidates for the coming [Goa Assembly elections](. The party has [denied the late Goa Chief Minister Mahohar Parrikar’s son, Utpal Parrikar, a ticket from Panaji]( deciding instead to stick with incumbent MLA Atanasio ‘Babush’ Monserrate. Barring a gap of two years, the seat had been held by Manohar Parrikar from 1994 till his death in March 2019. [ ]  “We have given Utpal two other options to contest, one of which he has already refused earlier. All of us feel that he should accept the second option,” BJP’s Goa election in charge Devendra Fadnavis said in Delhi. He asserted that the BJP “has always respected Manohar Parrikar’s family.” Utpal has been particularly piqued that the party leadership preferred Monserrate – a three-time MLA and former Minister with criminal antecedents. Monserrate, an ex-Congressman, was one of the key players who had engineered the defection of 10 Congress MLAs into the BJP in July 2019. The BJP is contesting all 40 seats for the first time in the coastal State. The list was decided on after hectic deliberations that dragged through Wednesday and extended into the night. Spouses of BJP leaders have also been given ticket, notably in the case of Monserrate and Health Minister Viswajit Rane, who will be contesting from Valpoi, the bastion of the Rane clan. In a bid to rebuff reports that the saffron party was ‘sidelining’ Christian minorities, the party has included nine Catholic candidates – the maximum number fielded by it thus far and 11 other backward caste (OBC) candidates. The party under Manohar Parrikar had fielded six Christian candidates in 2012, and eight in 2017. [underlineimg]  Recognise ‘Hinduphobia’ and violence against Buddhists, Sikhs too: Indian envoy to U.N. [Calling for the United Nations to recognise ‘Hinduphobia’ along with other acts of religious hatred against Buddhism and Sikhism]( India’s U.N. envoy T.S.Tirumurti said that the U.N.’s latest Global Counter-Terrorism strategy passed last year is full of flaws and is selective, and could reverse gains from the global consensus in the ‘war on terror’ post 9/11. In remarks indicating the government’s discomfort with new terms being added to the definition of terrorism, he also said that terms like “violent nationalism” and “right wing extremism” must not be included to resolutions on terrorism, as they would “dilute” them. “In the past two years, several member states, driven by their political, religious and other motivations, have been trying to label terrorism into categories such as racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism, violent nationalism, right wing extremism, etc. This tendency is dangerous for several reasons,” Tirumurti said, delivering a keynote address at a virtual conference organised by the Delhi-based Global Counter-Terrorism Centre (GCTC), where he said he spoke as Ambassador of India to the U.N. and not in his capacity as Chair of the Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) at the U.N. Security Council for 2022. India assumed the chair of the CTC this month, and Tirumurti’s strong remarks suggest that India will oppose any expansion of the terms that are included in the UNSC’s discussions on terrorism, until it demits the UNSC seat in December this year. Tirumurti pointed out that only religious phobias against “Abrahamic religions”: Islam, Christianity and Judaism had been named in the “Global Counter Terrorism Strategy’s” 7th review passed by the U.N. General Assembly in June 2021. “The emergence of contemporary forms of religiophobia, especially anti-Hindu, anti-Buddhist and anti-Sikh phobias is a matter of serious concern and needs attention of the U.N. and all member states to address this threat,” Tirumurti said, without mentioning any examples. [underlineimg]  White House warns Russia on invading Ukraine after Biden seems to suggest small incursions will be tolerated The [White House clarified]( that U.S. President Joe Biden’s opposition to Russian aggression on Ukraine after Biden appeared to suggest during a press conference that a small incursion by Russia would be tolerated. In a statement released after the press conference, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that any incursion would be met with a “severe” response from the U.S. and its allies. “President Biden has been clear with the Russian President: If any Russian military forces move across the Ukrainian border, that’s a renewed invasion, and it will be met with a swift, severe, and united response from the United States and our Allies,” Psaki said. She added that paramilitary and cyber attacks by Russia would also be met with reciprocal action. Tensions between the West and Moscow have soared as Russia has massed an estimated 100,000 troops along Ukraine’s borders. Earlier on January 19, Biden had told reporters during a press conference to mark his first anniversary in office that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), a military alliance of the West, was united in its opposition to the idea of Russia invading Ukraine, but qualified it to say the response would depend on the size of the incursion. “It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion, and then we [ NATO allies] end up having a fight about what to do and not do etc., “Biden said. “ But if they actually do what they’re capable of doing … it is going to be a disaster for Russia, if they further invade Ukraine and that our allies and partners are ready to impose severe cost and significant harm on Russia and the Russian economy,” he had said. Biden said he had conveyed to Putin (the two held a telephone call in December) that he would fortify NATO’s eastern flank if Russia went into Ukraine. He also said that Russia would prevail in the long run over Ukraine, if it invaded the country, but there would be a heavy cost. He said economic sanctions would involve a ban on transactions in dollar denominated assets. In a draft security agreement Moscow sent to Western countries in December, it had proposed that NATO not expand to include Ukraine. Another Russian demand was that NATO not deploy weapons or forces in countries that became NATO members after May 1997. Asked later during the press interaction if he had effectively given Putin “permission” to make a small incursion into Ukraine, Biden said, “ …It’s very important that we keep everyone in NATO on the same page. And that’s what I’m spending a lot of time doing.” There are differences within NATO on what countries are willing to do depending on what scenario plays out, Biden said. In terms of calibrating a response, he cited the example of cyber ops being countered with similar tactics. Asked if he has made a determination that Putin has decided to invade Ukraine, Biden said that Putin has not yet, he believed, made the decision and that he is calculating the short and long-term consequences for Russia. [underlineimg] Court orders FIR against Gurugram hospital, two doctors for leaving cotton inside women’s stomach A Gurugram court has ordered the registration of an FIR on the charge of medical negligence [for leaving a cotton swab in the abdomen of a woman]( during the birth of her baby after a caesarean. The court of Gurugram chief metropolitan magistrate gave the order on January 18 on a complaint by the woman’s husband, whose pleas earlier for the registration of a criminal case against Shiva Hospital in sector 12 was turned down by the police. In his complaint to the court, the woman’s husband Diwas Rai, a Darjeeling native living here at Sikandarpur with his wife Swastika, said his wife was found pregnant in April 2020. “There was a lockdown due to Covid and I had lost my job. In such a situation, I did not have money and took my wife to the government Anganwadi centre. The Anganwadi worker asked me to take my wife to Shiva Hospital in Sector-12,” he said in his complaint to the court. “As I took my wife to Shiva Hospital, the doctors operated upon her on November 16, 2020 and a baby girl was born and the hospital charged ₹30,000 from me,” he said. Rai alleged that right after the delivery, his wife started having abdominal pain and swelling with red marks on her stomach, following which he again took her to the hospital where doctors just gave her some vitamins and other medicines to reduce pain. But as the medicines given by the Shiva Hospital doctors did not work, Rai took her to another hospital where doctors suspected that she might be having issues in her stomach and began another course of treatment. “As my wife still did not get any relief and lost her weight by 16 kg while suffering all the pain that started post-delivery, I took her to a third hospital which advised a CT-Scan for my wife, following which she was found having some cotton swab-like articles in her abdomen,” Rai said. He added in his complaint that after he reported the matter to Shiva Hospital, they first ignored the findings but later sent an ambulance to my home and got my wife picked up and admitted to the hospital without my knowledge and consent. “At the hospital, they made her sign some blank forms and operated upon her and removed the swab,” said Rai. “As I went to the police, they ignored my complaint,” Rai added. On the court’s order, the police, however, has now lodged an FIR at the Sector 14 police station of Gurugram against Dr. Poonam Yadav and Dr. Anurag Yadav of Shiva hospital under sections 417 (punishment for cheating), 336 (act endangering life or personal safety of others), and 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) of the Indian Penal Code. Other IPC sections invoked in the FIR included sections 338 (act endangering life or personal safety of others), 506 (criminal intimidation), 509 (insult to the modesty of a woman) and 34 (common intention) of IPC at Sector 14 police station. Police said they are investigating the case. [underlineimg] Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments The [number of reported coronavirus cases from India]( stood at 3,84,11,373 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 4,88,280. [underlineimg] Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. Today's Top Picks [[Army in touch with China’s PLA for return of abducted Arunachal teen] Army in touch with China’s PLA for return of abducted Arunachal teen]( [[Explained | The challenge of antimicrobial resistance] Explained | The challenge of antimicrobial resistance]( [[Microsoft strides into the gaming metaverse] Microsoft strides into the gaming metaverse]( [[Muhurtam in the metaverse? 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