Special reservations to be treated horizontally: Telangana HC

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday faulted the state government and the residential educational institutions recruitment board for treating special reservations as vertical reservations instead of horizontal ones, for filling teaching posts at residential educational institutions.

The special reservations include those for women, physically challenged, ex-service personnel and sportspersons, among others.

Justice P. Madhavi Devi of the Telangana High Court issued interim directions to the authorities to follow the horizontal mode of reservation, as prescribed by the Supreme Court in the case of Rajesh Kumar Daria vs Rajasthan Public Service Commission.

The court also criticised state authorities for earmarking roster points for special reservations in filling up the posts. The judge was dealing with a petition filed by unemployed youth, who applied for the posts of teaching staff, librarian, and physical director in degree and Intermediate residential educational institutions run by the state government.

They complained that authorities, in the guise of special reservations, were earmarking 100 roaster points and based on the points, implementing vertical reservations, instead of horizontal reservations.

After considering the case, the judge issued the interim order to follow horizontal reservations and directed the government and recruitment board to file counters.

Vertical reservation is the social reservation in favour of SC, ST and OBCs, while special reservations favour physically handicapped, women etc., under Articles 16(1) and 15(3). Where a vertical reservation is made in favour of a section of people, candidates belonging to such a backward class may compete for non-reserved posts and if they are appointed to the non-reserved posts on their merit, their numbers will not be counted against the quota in the horizontal reservation.

Where a special reservation for women is provided within the social reservation for SCs, the proper procedure is first to fill up the quota in order of merit and then find out the number of candidates among them who belong to the special reservation group.