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The writ petitioners had also challenged clause 4 of the Government Order dated 25.03.1994 on the ground that the said provision amounts to reverse discrimination in respect of general category candidates for the reason that "their seats" are filled in by the candidates belonging to reserved category candidates and hence it is violative of the equality clause enshrined in Article 16(1) of the Constitution of India, apart from being violative of Article 14. It was contended in this regard that once a candidate has taken benefit of being reserved category candidate at the entry point, he could not be selected under the unreserved category and that he has to compete only amongst the reserved category candidates in the selection and by applying clause 4 of the Government Order dated 25.03.1994 "the level playing field" gets disturbed.

The basic premise of asserting that the Government Order dated 25.03.1994 is ultra vires under Articles 14 and 16(1) of the Constitution of India, as argued by the writ petitioners, is that it amounts to reverse discrimination in respect of general category candidates as "their seats" are being filled in by the candidates belonging to reserved category, who had already obtained certain concessions and age relaxation. Scheme of Reservation Act, 1994 reveals that there are no seats reserved for the general/open category candidates, in fact, the Reservation Act has been enacted by the State Legislature with a view to provide benefit of reservation to the reserved category candidates and it does not reserve any seat for unreserved/open category candidates. If the submission of learned counsel representing the writ petitioners in this regard is accepted, as already observed above, the same would result in providing reservation to open/general category candidates, which cannot be and is not the intention of the Legislature. There is no law prescribing reservation for general category candidates in public employment and as such there does not arise any question of the reserved category candidates occupying or being selected against "their seats". Since there is no concept of providing reservation to open category or general category candidates, there cannot be any concept of "their seats" for open/general candidates.