Thursday, Aug 26, 2010
Madurai: The Madras High Court Bench here on Wednesday ruled that only children and not grandchildren of freedom fighters were eligible for admission into M.B.B.S. (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery) and B.D.S. (Bachelor of Dental Surgery) courses under a special quota.

Allowing a writ appeal filed by the State, Justices K. Suguna and C.S. Karnan agreed with Additional Advocate General P. Wilson that the Court could not give a direction to extend the benefit to grand children when the Government had taken a policy decision to confine it only to the children of freedom fighters. Writing the judgement for the Division Bench, Ms. Justice Suguna also held: “We do not find any arbitrariness or unfairness with regard to the decision taken by the Government to restrict the special reservation for MBBS/BDS course only to the children of freedom fighters.” The present writ appeal was filed against an order passed by a single judge on September 24 that grand children of freedom fighters too were eligible for the reservation. Disagreeing with his conclusion, the Division Bench pointed out that three other single judges had taken a contrary view in different cases before them.