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The State of Punjab and Another vs Anshika Goyal and Others

Civil Appeal · 2022 INSC 94Decided 25 Jan 2022
Civil Appeal No. 318 of 2022
M.R. Shah · B.V. Nagarathna

Background

Punjab's Sports Policy of 2018 promised a 3% admission quota for sportspersons, but the state government later notified only a 1% quota for sportspersons (and separately 1% each for children/grandchildren of terrorist-affected and Sikh-riot-affected persons) for medical and dental college admissions, and did not extend these quotas to private colleges' management-quota seats. Students challenged this before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which directed the state to raise the sportspersons' quota to 3% and to extend the other reservations to private colleges' management quota as well. The State of Punjab appealed to the Supreme Court against these directions.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that courts cannot issue a writ of mandamus compelling a state government to grant reservations, or to fix a reservation percentage different from what the government has consciously decided as a matter of policy, citing a line of its own precedents holding that reservation provisions under the Constitution are enabling, not mandatory. Since the State had already made a considered decision to fix the sportspersons' quota at 1% (consistent with a specific 2019 order relying on the Sports Policy's own Clause 10, which allows departments to set a different quota), the High Court's direction to raise it to 3% was quashed as an overreach of judicial power. On the first issue (extending reservations to private colleges for the 2019-20 academic year), the Court found the point had become academic because the state had since (for 2021-22) already extended similar reservations to private institutes and admissions for the disputed year were already completed, so it disposed of that part without deciding the underlying legal question, leaving it open for a future case.

Lesson Learnt

Courts generally cannot order a government to create or expand a quota/reservation scheme, or to fix a specific reservation percentage, because such policy choices fall within the executive's discretion under enabling constitutional provisions: a citizen dissatisfied with a reservation policy must seek redress through the political/administrative process, not through a court-ordered mandamus.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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