Kerala Medical PG: 27 percent backward reservation is belated justice from govt

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The decision of the state cabinet yesterday to set aside 27 percent reservation for SEBCs and OBCs in admission to state medical PG courses from this year is a belated justice for the backward communities. This was achieved by overcoming long, legal battles and the lies of the official lobby.

For years, students from backward communities were provided just 9 percent reservation, thereby denying them a fair share of medical PG admissions. The government had not agreed to increase the backward community reservation from 9 percent, even when it decided to implement 10 percent EWS reservation since last year. With this, reservation for students from the forward communities, which constituted 20 percent of the population, exceeded that of backward-Muslim communities, which constituted 70 percent of the population.

At last year's admission, the forward communities got two more seats than the backward communities This injustice was exposed in a report published by Kerala Kaumudi on October 27, 2020, under the headline 'Medical PG: More reservation for the forward communities than the backward'.

Ten months to comply with High Court order

Following this, two backward medical students, Dr Sajith Raj from Kottayam and Dr AK Hridya from Thiruvananthapuram, approached the Kerala High Court citing the report published by Kerala Kaumudi. The intervention of the single bench of the high court in the petition was crucial.

The OBC reservation was as follows: Ezhava: 3 Muslim: 2 LC: 1 Backward Hindu: 1 Backward Christian: 1 Kudumbi: 1. The petitioners approached the High Court against this with the support of National Forum for Social Justice Co-ordinator VR Joshi. The petitioners also added that no action was taken even after submitting a petition to the government, the principal secretaries of Higher Education and Backward Classes Development and the director of Medical Education.

On December 7, 2020, the High Court directed the government to consider and resolve the petition seeking reservation in proportion to the population of the backward classes, including the Ezhavas, within four months. The then Minister of Higher Education, Dr KT Jaleel, assured the Assembly that the government would take immediate action to increase the backward reservation. The State Backward Classes Commission also directed that 30 per cent reservation should be allowed for the backward classes. However, the higher medical education department officials gave a piece of strange advice to the government that there were not enough PG seats to increase the backward reservation. Kerala Kaumudi then exposed this ploy to transfer the seats to service quota and brought this injustice to the notice of the government through its editorial.