The Supreme Court has invalidated a university regulation that mandated students aiming for admission under the sports quota to achieve a minimum of 75% marks.

The matter was heard before the division bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Aravind Kumar “The objective of introducing sports quota is not to accommodate academic merit, but something altogether different – promotion of sports in the institution, the university, and ultimately, in the country,” 

Further, the bench held that universities were the “nurseries or catchment for sportspersons” who can represent the country worldwide.

“The imposition of the minimum 75% eligibility condition, therefore, does not subserve the object of introducing the sports quota, but is, rather destructive of it.”

The court reasoned that the rule would exclude sportspersons who may have won an Olympic medal if another sportsperson who has never reached even the national level, secures 80% marks in the qualifying examination.

“It is exactly this consequence which this court had warned would be the “unequal application” of a uniform criterion, a wooden equality without regard to the inherent differences, which Article 14 frowns upon, and forbids,” the bench said.

In this matter, petition was filed by Dev Gupta who did not secure 75% marks in the Class 12 examination and failed to get through the 2% sports quota in the engineering course offered by PEC University of Technology at Chandigarh.

The university had received 34 applications for the 17 sports quota seats. Of the 34, 28 fulfilled the 75% cutoff yardstick and admissions against 16 seats were finalised. The court on Tuesday directed the university not to fill the last vacant seat pending the final order.

The Supreme Court granted permission to the petitioner and five other individuals who did not meet the qualifying criteria to be considered for the remaining vacant seat under the sports quota. Additionally, the court directed the university to finalize the admissions within a span of two weeks.

Senior advocate PS Patwalia, representing the petitioner student, informed the court that the university had previously admitted students under the sports quota based on the requirement of being a "10+2 pass." This was also aligned with the 2023 sports policy introduced by the Chandigarh administration, which mandated passing the qualifying exam or having studied in Chandigarh for the preceding two years.

The court raised a query, questioning why students applying under reserved category seats were entitled to a 10% relaxation from the 65% qualifying cutoff, and why the state couldn't similarly reduce the criteria for the sports quota.

“The dissimilarity in treatment is therefore, egregious...It is held that exclusion of the petitioner and other like candidates on the ground of their securing less than 75% in the qualifying examination, was unwarranted and discriminatory. The reference to, and incorporation of clauses giving effect to such criterion is held unenforceable and void.”