Observing that unequals must not be treated equally, the Supreme Court has set aside the Chandigarh administration's eligibility condition that a candidate must secure 75 per cent marks in the qualifying examination for claiming admission in engineering courses under the two-per cent sports quota.

While setting aside the Punjab and Haryana High Court's decision upholding the condition, the top court said it was “discriminatory” and fell “afoul of the equality clause” under Article 14 of the Constitution.

“The imposition of the minimum 75% eligibility condition, therefore, does not subserve the object of introducing the sports quota, but is, rather destructive of it; the criterion, in that sense subverted the object and is discriminatory; it therefore, falls afoul of the equality clause, in Article 14 (right to equality) of the Constitution,” a bench of justices S Ravindra Bhat and Aravind Kumar said.

Justice Bhat, writing the judgement which was delivered on Wednesday, said the objective of introducing the sports quota was to promote and encourage those who excelled and gained a certain degree of prescribed proficiency and achievement in defined competitive sports.

“The introduction of this quota was to promote sports, and sportsmanship in educational institutions. No doubt, the state acts within its rights to prescribe a certain minimum eligibility standard or set of criteria as the threshold requirement for admission to any particular course, given its peculiar requirements,” the verdict said.

The condition, however, cannot be such which frustrates the intent of the policy to promote sports in educational institutions.

“The objective of introducing sports quota, however, is not to accommodate academic merit, but something altogether different: promotion of sports in the institution, the university, and ultimately, in the country. Among others, universities are the nurseries or the catchment for sportspersons, who can represent in state, national, international level and Olympic sports,” it said. It also dealt with constitutional jurisprudence and said the doctrine of equality has varied and layered dimensions.

“One of which is that under Article 14, ‘Equals must be treated equally. Unequals must not be treated equally. What constitutes reasonable classification must depend upon the facts of each case, the context provided by the statute, the existence of intelligible differentia which has led to the grouping of the persons or things as a class and the leaving out of those who do not share the intelligible differentia.

"No doubt it must bear rational nexus to the objects sought to be achieved’,” the bench said while quoting judgements.

The bench allowed the appeal of Dev Gupta, who was denied admission under sports quota on account of not securing 75 per cent marks in his 12th board examination, against the high court judgement.

“In view of the findings, it is hereby directed that the remaining seat or seats shall be filled by application of the standards spelt out in the sports policy of the UT of Chandigarh, as applied by the respondent university to determine inter se sports merit of the candidates who had applied, but whose candidature was rejected on the ground of ineligibility due to their securing less than 75% marks in the qualifying examination,” it said.

The high court had rejected Gupta's plea which questioned a minimum of 75 per cent aggregate marks as an eligibility condition for a candidate to claim admission in engineering courses under sports quota.

It was submitted that the sudden imposition of such an eligibility condition defeated the purpose of the quota itself and was, consequently, arbitrary.

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