Madras High Court
Navarasam Matriculation Higher ... vs State Of Tamil Nadu, Rep. By Its ... on 16 July, 1998
Equivalent citations: 1998(2)CTC129, (1998)IIIMLJ504
ORDER Judgement pronounced by K.Govindarajan , J.
1. The petitioner have filed the above writ petitions as Public Interest Litigation for the benefit of the students who have studied in higher secondary schools located in town panchayats.
2. In WP No.3229 of 1998 the petitioner has challenged the order in G.O.Ms.No.600 Health & Family Welfare (MCA) Department dated 5.12.1997. The same writ petitioner has filed another Writ Petition in W.P.No.3230 of 1998 challenging another order issued in G.O.Ms.No.261 Department of Higher Education, dated 12.5.1997 under which the Government directed that 15% of total seats be reserved rural students who have studied both plus one and plus two in higher secondary schools located in village panchayats for a total period of two years and subject to the usual reservation laid down in the Government Order dated 9.5.1995.
3. The petitioners in WP No.4330 of 1998 have challenged the abovesaid two Government Orders and they are seeking a direction to the respondents to include students studying in higher secondary schools in major panchayats also to avoid 15% reservation quota for being selected to the notified Professional Courses, within the meaning of rural students so as to render social justice to the rural public.
4. Mr. V. K. Muthusamy, the learned Senior Counsel appearing for the writ petitioner in WP Nos.3229 and 3230 of 1998 has submitted that the said Government Orders, as it is, cannot be sustained on the basis of the following grounds:- (1) The Government Orders do not define the 'rural students' and 'urban students'; (2) The students studied in schools located at town panchayats cannot be treated differently as they are also hailing from rural areas. According to him equals cannot be treated as unequals; (3) While the report of the High Level Committee speaks only about the rural students and when the Government accepts the recommendation of the Committee, in entirety, the Government should not be allowed to restrict the benefits only to a class of persons, viz., the students who are studying in higher secondary schools located at village panchayats; (4) There is no specific exclusion of the students studying in higher secondary schools located in town panchayats, in the said Government Orders.
5. Mr. Alagiriswamy, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioners in WP No.4330 of 1998 has submitted that the benefits have to be extended to all rural students on the basis of their, domicile and not on the basis of the place of study. According to him even the rural students for want of schools in the village panchayats are compelled to. Go to schools located in urban areas.
6. In reply to these submissions, the teamed Special Government Pleader appearing for the respondents has submitted that the said Government Orders came to be passed to give benefit to students studying in the schools located in village panchayats. The said reservation is extended to them exercising powers under Article 15(5) of the Constitution of India. It is the policy decision of the Government and the petitioners cannot invoke the jurisdiction of this Court challenging the same under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. So the petitioners cannot allege any discrimination so as to invoke Article 226 of the Constitution of India. as the students studying in higher secondary schools located in village panchayats themselves form one category and the students who are studying in town panchayats form a separate category, and so both of them cannot be equated. According to the Special Government Pleader, nobody can demand to give the benefits under Article 15(4) of the Constitution as a matter of right and the Government is entitled to make such reservation on valid basis and so the petitioners cannot seek modification of the Government Orders by extending the benefits, either to the students who are studying in higher secondary schools located in town panchayats or to all rural students in common.
7. Both the learned senior counsel appearing for the petitioners have not challenged the power of the Government making reservation under the impugned orders exercising powers under Article 15(4) of the Constitution of India. The only grievance of the petitioners is that the said reservation should be extended even to the students who are studying in the higher secondary schools located in town panchayats and to the rural students on their domicile basis.
8. The learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioner in WP Nos.3229 and 3230 of 1998 has submitted that "the rural students" for whose benefit the impugned orders came to be passed have not been defined in the Government Orders in question and so it will lead to some confusion in enforcing the said Government Orders. We are not able to accept the said submission of the learned Senior Counsel. The impugned Government Orders are very clear regarding the beneficiaries. In G.O.Ms.No.261, Department of Higher Education, dated 12.5.1997 it is stated that "the Government accept the above suggestion and direct that 15% of total seats be reserved to rural students who have studied both +1 and +2 in Higher Secondary Schools located in Village Pinhead for a total period of two years and subject to usual reservation laid down in Government Order first read above" (Italics is ours). Even in G.O.Ms.No.600, Health and Family Welfare (MCA) Department, dated 5.12.1997 the beneficiaries have been identified as follows:-
"(1) By allowing the mode of reservation now in existence, 15% out of the total seats shall be reserved for the rural students who studied llth and 12th standards in the Higher Secondary Schools located in village panchayats, for admission to MBBS/Dental Medicine in Government Medical College/Self-fiancing and Dental Colleges; (2) The above Order will not be applicable to the students studying in the Higher Secondary Schools situated in Corporations, Towns and the Urban areas surrounded there to throughout the State; (3) The urban area limits as far as the Chennai City is concerned the limits of the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority. As far as the other . cities and Municipalities are concerned, the Urban Land Ceiling limits of the respective urban areas; (4) The Selection Committee located in Kilpauk Medical College, Chennai Campus will prepare the list of students of Village Panchayats based on the list prepared by Anna University."
From the above it can be seen that the urban area has also been defined. In the said Government Order the students studying in higher secondary schools located in Corporation towns and urban areas are excluded. In view of the very clear identification of the beneficiaries, the submission of the learned Senior Counsel that the rural students who are entitled for this benefit have not been defined and it will lead to confusion cannot be accepted.
9. The learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioner in WP Nos.3229 and 3230 of 1998 has further submitted that the Government Order came to be passed only on the basis of the High Level Committee constituted by the Government and so while accepting the Committee's recommendation, it should be accepted in entirety as the Committee has distinguished only the urban and rural students and not village panchayats and town panchayats. According to him, even the students who are studying in town panchayat schools are rural students. In support of his submission, the learned Senior Counsel has sought to rely on Section 3-(18-A) of the Tamil Nadu District Municipalities Act which reads as follows:-
"3(18-A): 'panchayat town' means an area in transition from a rural area to an urban area classified as Panchayat town under Section 3-B".
On the basis of the abovesaid definition, the -learned Senior Counsel has submitted that even town panchayats have to be taken as rural areas as they are only in transition stage and so they cannot be treated differently. According to him, equals cannot be treated as unequals.
10. In the report of the High Level Committee with respect to the issue in question, it is stated as follows:-
"Experience has shown that the free seat quotas are cornered by the urban students because of their locational advantage with regard to school, coaching for entrance examination etc. leaving the rural students the inevitability of payment seats. In order to help the bright students of rural area the Committee recommended the reservation of 15% of total engineering seats to rural students subject to usual communal reservations."
On the basis of these recommendations, the Government examined the said suggestion in consultation with the Director of Technical Education and thought it fit to reserve 15% of total seats to the students who studied two years in the higher secondary schools located in village panchayats. The Government itself in its wisdom has taken a policy decision to give the said concession to the rural students who studied in higher secondary schools located in village panchayats. If there is an objective and rational foundation for such classification, Court will not interfere with the exercise of Governmental decision by itself undertaking an exercise to find out as to whether expansion of classification is possible or not. It is well settled that in matters of economic rights and policy decision the scope of judicial review is limited and circumscribed. It is also well settled that the policy of the Government cannot be challenged under Article 226 of the Constitution except if it is contrary to the constitutional scheme of reservation. In the present case, it cannot be said that the Government has adopted a policy which is contrary to the constitutional scheme of reservation and the said policy is within the four corners of Article 15(4) of the Constitution of India. While dealing with powers of judicial review regarding policy matters, the Hon'ble Apex Court in M.P. Oil Extraction v. Slate of M.P., has held as follows:-
"The executive authority of the State must be held to be within it competence to frame a policy for the administration of the State. Unless the policy framed is absolutely capricious and, not being informed by any reason whatsoever, can be clearly held to be arbitrary and founded on mere ipse dixit of the executive functionaries thereby offending Article 14 of the Constitution or such policy offends other constitutional provisions or comes into conflict with any statutory provision, the Court cannot and should not outstep its limit and tinker with the policy decision of the executive functionary of the State. This Court, in no uncertain terms, has sounded a note of caution by indicating that policy decision is in the domain of the executive authority of the State and the Court should not embark on the unchartered ocean of public policy and should not question the efficacy or otherwise of such policy so long as the same does not offend any provision of the stature or the Constitution of India. The supremacy of each of the three organs of the State i.e. legislature, executive and judiciary in their respective fields of operation needs to be emphasised. The power of judicial review of the executive and legislative action must be kept within the bounds of constitutional scheme so that there may not be any occasion to entertain misgivings about the role of judiciary in outstepping its limit by unwarranted judicial activism being very often talked of in these days.
The democratic set-up to which the polity is so deeply committed cannot function properly unless each of the three organs appreciate the need for mutual respect and supremacy in their respective fields"
11. The students studied in village panchayat schools will form class of their own. It is for the Government to decide as to whom the benefits should be given by exercising the powers under Article 15(4) of the Constitution of India. The reason given for forming such a classification as stated in the counter cannot be said to be unreasonable. Though the learned counsel has submitted that the students who are studying in town panchayat schools should" be treated as equals, no material is produced before this Court to substantiate the same, except relying on Section 3(18-A) of the Tamil Nadu District Municipalities Act. This definition is based on Article 243Q of the Constitution of India which reads as follows:-
"(1) There shall be constituted in every State:-
a) a Nagar Panchayat (by whatever name called) for a transitional area, that is to say, an area in transition from a rural area to an urban area;
(b).........;
(c).........; (2) In this article, 'a transitional area', 'a smaller urban area', or ' a larger urban area' means such area as the Governor may, having regard to the population of the area, the density of the population therein, the revenue generated for local administration, the percentage of employ-ment in non-agricultural activities, the economic importance or such other factors as he may deem fit, specify by public notification for the purposes of this part"
From the said provisions it will be clear that the village, panchayat and panchayat town cannot be equated. The panchayat town constitutes different classification in view of the features mentioned in Article 243(Q) of the Constitution of India.
12. In the absence of any particulars to show that the students who are studying in town panchayat schools and the students who are studying in village panchayat schools are equals, the submission of the learned senior counsel on the basis of Article 14 of the Constitution of India cannot be sustained. If cannot be said that the Government Orders impugned are in effect destroy. the guarantee Under Article 15(1) of the Constitution of India. The learned senior counsel in, support of his submission has relied on the decisions in State of A.P. v. P. Sagar, and in Jagdish Saran v.
Union of India, . As stated earlier there is no materials to find out discrimination as alleged. The decisions cited above would not render any help to the petitioners case.
13. The learned Senior Counsel, in support of his submission that the classification should be reasonable, has relied on the decision reported in Kerala Hotel and Restaurant Assn. v. State of Kerala, 1990 (2) SCC 520. In the said decision the Apex Court has held as follows:-
"Reasonableness of the classification has to be decided with reference to the realities of life and not in the abstract. A discernible dissimilarity between those grouped together and those excluded is a pragmatic, test, if there be a rational nexus of such classification with the object to be achieved. In the abstract all cooked food may be the same since its efficacy is to appease the hunger of the consumer. But when the object is to raise only limited revenue by taxing only some category of cooked food sold in eating houses and not all cooked food sold anywhere, it is undoubtedly reasonable to tax only the more costly cooked food. The taxed cooked food being the more costly variety constitutes a distinct class with a discernible difference from the remaining tax free cooked food. A blinkered perception of stark reality alone can equate caviar served with.
champagne in a luxury hotel with the gruel and buttermilk in a village hamlet on the unrealistic abstract hypothesis that both the means have the equal efficacy to appease the hunger and quench the thirst of the consumer Validity of a classification under our Constitution does not require such a blurred preception"
Even in the said decision it is held that the classification has to be accepted if it is founded on intelligble differentia. The earlier discussions in this order will clearly show that the classification made in this case cannot be said to be unreasonable or not on intelligible differentia.
14. The Apex Court in Jadish Lal v. State of Haryana, while considering the scope of "equality" has held as follows: -
"Equality must not remain mere idle incantation but must become a vibrant living reality for the large masses of people. In a hierarchial society with an indelible feudal stamp and incurable actual inequality ft is absurd to Suggest that progressive measures to eliminate group disabilities and promote collective equality are antagonistic to and anathema to equality on the ground that every individual is entitled to equality of opportunity based purely on the merit mantra judged by the marks obtained by him. We cannot countenance such, a suggestion, for to do so would make the equality clause sterile and perpetuate existing inequalities. Equality of opportunity, is not simply a matter of legal equality. Its existence depends not merely on the absence of disabilities but on the presence of abilities and opportunity for excellence, in each cadre/grade. Where, therefore, there is inequality, in fact, legal equality always tends to accentuate inequality. It is, therefore, necessary to take into account de facto inequalities which exist in the society and in order to bring about real, equality, affirmative action fills the bill and allows to give preference to the socially and economically disadvantaged persons by inflicting handicaps on those more advantageously placed. Such equality in results on a broader basis by eliminating de facto inequalities and the stronger, more powerful and disadvantaged (sic) sections so that each member of the community, whatever be his birth, occupation or social endowments of physique, character and intelligence. This principal was approved and reiterated by the Constitution Bench in Marri Chandra Shekhar Rao v. Dean, Seth G.S.Medical College, . It is, thus, settled constitutional principle that facilities and opportunities should, be given to higher cadre or grade and gain accelerated seniority by delimiting the seniority of the erstwhile general candidates in the lower cadre or grade in accordance with the roster point. Thereby, the Dalits and Tribes will be able to get an accelerated placement in the higher echelons of a cadre or grade. It is constitutionally a permissible classification bearing reasonable nexus to the object of equality in results as a component of economic and social empowerment. It is just and reasonable procedure prescribed to achieve the constitutional objectives of equality of status and opportunity and dignity of person to integrate them in the mainstream of the national life, as per the arch of the Constitution, i.e., the Constitution consistent with the efficiency of administration envisaged under Article 335 of the Constitution."
So, the submissions of Mr. Muthusamy, the learned Senior Counsel to substantiate the case of the petitioner cannot be countenanced.
15. Though the petitioners in WP No.4330 of 1998 have challenged in the writ petition that the benefits should be extended to the students who are studying in town panchayat schools also, the learned Senior Counsel has submitted that the benefits should be given to all the rural students irrespective of their place of study. The said submission is not only contrary to the prayer sought for but also cannot be accepted in view of the settled principles of law. Admittedly, exercising powers under Article 15(4) of the Constitution of India, the Government has passed the Order, forming one specific class.
16. According to Mr. Alagiriswami, the learned Senior Counsel, the recommendation is only to give benefit to all the rural students and it cannot be restricted to a set of particular students who are studying in village panchayat schools by which it cannot be Said that the object has been achieved in real sense. Though the report speaks about the rural students, on the basis of the report the Government has taken a policy decision. The reason for the classification has been set out in the counter. When the said classification cannot be said to be unreasonable, the petitioners cannot ask the Court to extend the scope of the Government Orders by, exercising the jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. That being so, it is not for the Court to ask the Government to extend the same benefit to other category of students, or to the other students on domicile basis.
17. In view of the above discussions, we do not find any merits in these writ petitions. Accordingly, they are dismissed. No costs. Consequently, the connected WMPs. are closed.