SUPREME COURT: NOT DECLARING SEPARATE CUT-OFF FOR PWD CATEGORY FALLING UNDER OVERALL HORIZONTAL RESERVATION IS NOT ARBITRARY

The Supreme Court in the case Rekha Sharma the Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur And Anr. observed and has held that nonfixation of the cut-off marks for the category of persons with benchmark disability who are falling under an Overall Horizontal Reservation could neither be said to be arbitrary nor violative of the Fundamental Rights.

The Court in the case observed and has stated that when a particular category falls under an overall reservation, than it would not be incumbent on the selection authorities to show the cut-off marks for such category.

The court in the case explained that the Horizontal Reservation is of two types:

1. Compartmentalised Horizontal Reservation, and

2. Overall Horizontal Reservation

The Compartmentalised Horizontal Reservation is such wherein the proportionate vacancies are being reserved in each vertical reserved category.

In case of Overall Horizontal Reservation, the Reservation is provided on the total post advertised i.e. such reservation is not specific to each vertical category.

The bench comprising of Justice Bela M Trivedi and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma in the case observed that the appellants after they having found that their names do not appear in the list of successful candidates of Preliminary Examination, could not have questioned the result which being on the ground that the respondents had not declared the cut off marks for the Persons with benchmark disabilities. Earlier, the respondents have declared the cut off marks for the persons who are falling under Compartmentalised Horizontal Reservation and not for the Overall Horizontal Reservation under which the appellants fall and such kind of action could neither be said to be arbitrary nor violative of Article14, Article 16 and Article 21 of the Constitution of India.