After the Maharashtra government refused to withdraw its decision to apply SC/ST/OBC reservation to minority trust-run junior colleges for the First Year Junior College (FYJC) admissions, the Bombay High Court on Thursday halted the effect of the decision, dealing the government a setback. The court granted the interim relief to colleges run by minority trusts and their association after finding substance in their submissions. “In our opinion, a case is made out for grant of interim reliefs. Accordingly, till further orders we direct that insofar as minority educational institutions are concerned for admissions to the FYJC with which the petitions are concerned, the mandate of social reservation shall not be made applicable to any seats in the Petitioners’ minority educational institutions. Consequent steps may be taken by the State Government,” the HC noted. The state will have to update the online admission portal in accordance with the court order. The bench relied on past verdicts, including the October 12, 2017 decision of the Bombay High Court that struck down Mumbai University’s decision of providing reservation to backward classes in minority colleges. St. Xavier's College in South Mumbai had challenged the University’s decision, which the HC set aside and the Supreme Court upheld HC's order in July, 2018. The HC said that the same verdict “squarely applies to the present case”. This came after the government lawyer informed the court that she had no instructions from the officials to withdraw the relevant clause in the government resolution issued by the school education department. On Wednesday, the court asked the government to consider withdrawing the relevant portion of the government resolution (GR) issued on May 6 with a clause on SC/ST/OBC reservation in minority institutions. The court also reminded the government that it had withdrawn a similar government resolution in 2019. A bench of Justices Makarand S Karnik and Nitin R Borkar passed an interim order on a batch of petitions by the Maharashtra Association of Minority Educational Institutions, two minority colleges in Solapur and those from South Mumbai, including Jai Hind, KC, HR and St Xavier’s colleges, challenging the government resolution. Senior advocate Milind Sathe and advocate SC Naidu, appearing for petitioners, argued that the decision was “arbitrary” and “imposed without any authority of law” and without hearing or consulting them. They claimed that minority institutions were excluded from applying social reservations under Article 15(5) of the Constitution and that they can establish and administer educational institutions, as per Article 30 (1). Government pleader Neha Bhide, however, defended the decision stating that the rights of minority educational institutions were not fettered by the government resolution, as per which she said social reservation was applicable only to the surrendered seats from the minority quota and would not therefore affect such institutions. As per the established practice followed until the previous academic year, 45 per cent of the total intake in minority institutions was kept open to all students, regardless of category, after allocating 50 per cent for the respective minority community and 5 per cent for the management quota. However, this year, after the impugned government resolution, the FYJC admission portal showed that SC/ST/OBC reservation is being applied to those 45 per cent seats, which led to confusion and controversy in FYJC admissions for 2025-26. Clause 11 in the May 6 GR stated, “If admissions are lower than the intake capacity in minority quota, admissions can be given as per interchanging between linguistic and religious minority groups. Even after that, if seats remain vacant, those surrendered vacant seats will be filled based on the centralised admission process where all social and parallel reservations are applicable.” While colleges claimed that the government resolution pertained to leftover seats in the minority quota, government officials had said it implied that social reservation would be applicable to all open (non-minority) seats in minority-trust-run colleges. Thereafter, the state government issued a corrective resolution on June 2, which implied social reservation to all open seats in minority colleges. The Association, through its writ plea for setting aside the relevant portion of the government resolution, also sought the court’s directive to authorities to take immediate steps to correct/update the online admission portal for Class 11 admissions for the member institutions. On June 10, the government issued a new corrective government resolution, which brought back the same sentence along with additional inputs from the May 6 GR. The court has asked the state government to file its reply to the pleas within four weeks and posted further hearing to August 6.
