SC vacates HC stay on UPTU quota

Reservation of 50 percent seats for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and OBC students in private unaided technical institutions of Uttar Pradesh has now got a legal sanction with the Supreme Court lifting the stay on its implementation granted by the Allahabad High Court on Wednesday.

The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court had pronounced the stay order on August 7 while arbitrating on a PIL from Vijay Kumar Singh Parmar and others. The stay was vacated by a Bench of the apex court consisting of Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan.
 
Following the revocation of the stay order, the Supreme Court, through a notice, sought response of the petitioners who had challenged Government Order (GO) issued on July 22 reserving 50 per cent seats in private unaided technical institutions for the underprivileged sections of the society.
 
The High Court’s contention was that the observations made during a meeting of UP Technical University and private unaided institution with the government can not be the basis for an agreement.
 
Hence, the court ruled, the GO could not be complied with in the counseling scheduled to begin on August 8.