Sports quota eligibility condition of 75% in Class 12 discriminatory: Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has held that the eligibility condition of minimum 75% marks does not promote the object of introducing the sports quota, and such criterion subverts the object and falls afoul of the equality clause in Article 14 of the Constitution.

A bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Aravind Kumar made the ruling as they recently considered a special leave petition filed against order of the the Punjab and Haryana High Court rejecting the petition which had questioned the imposition of a minimum 75 per cent aggregate marks as an eligibility condition (in the qualifying examination) for enabling a candidate to claim admission in engineering courses under the 2 per cent sports quota.

The appellant who did not secure the basic 75 per cent marks, had approached the High Court complaining that the eligibility condition was unrealistically high, after one seat had fallen vacant in Materials and Metallurgical Engineering branch in the PEC University of Technology.

The eligibility criterion for admission to engineering courses under sports quota mentioned that the candidate should have secured minimum 75 per cent marks in the Class 12 examination of respective stream and Board.