Madras High Court today dismissed appeals filed against the order of a single judge upholding the validity of the current policy of Puducherry Government restricting the benefit of scheduled casts only to the residents of the Union Territory and not to those migrated from the other states.
A Division Bench comprising Justice Satish K Agnihotri and Justice K K Sasidharan before which appeals filed by individual candidates and Pondichery Scheduled Caste Peoples' Welfare Association representing the SC's who migrated from the other states have come up in its order made it clear that nobody can compel Puducherry to extend SC quota benefits to SCs who had migrated from other states.
The matter relates to petitions by migrated SCs to Puducherry claiming reservation under SC quota in the MBBS medical seats.
Earlier Justice M M Sundresh had dismissed the petitions filed by various petitioners challenging the prospectus of CENTAC for the year 2015-16 against which the appeals filed were the subject matter of these writ appeals.
They submitted that they are the residents for a period of five years and all are migrated from Tamil Nadu where they were enjoying the benefits of SC in education.
Dismissed their appeals the court said "Individual appellants and members of the association are all SCs belonging to Tamil Nadu. They are entitled to the benefits of reservation in the state from where they migrated. There is no question of considering them as SCs in relation to the Union Territory of Pondicherry, in view of their migration after the cut-off date."
The bench in its order said that it was possible for the Union Territory to extend the other benefits to those migrated from other states if it passes appropriate legislation.
The Judges said such benefits that are going to be extended by way of legislation, if any, should not affect prejudicially the rights of SCs of Puducherry.
