Are college sports quotas illegal? Hyderabad HC thinks so, wants them scrapped

Even as we lament the poor performance of Indian contingent in Rio, here is another reason to worry for athletes and sportspeople – the Hyderabad HC has said that state governments should consider disbanding sports quota in educational institutions as they did not have sanction from the Constitution and provided backdoor entry to students who were not meritorious.

According to Times of India, the judgment was passed on August 8 but the order copy was made available only on Wednesday. The court seemed to have been irked by Andhra government’s including of insignificant sports in the quota system.

“It is sad to note that except video games, all other games that one could conceive of have been brought within the sports quota to enable persons who cannot excel in academic studies to gain admission into medical courses through the backdoor,” HC bench of Justice Ramasubramanian and Justice Anis said in the judgment, reports TOI.

According to the report,

The court gave the judgment while dismissing a petition filed by a student, P Tharuni from Krishna district, who had challenged the action of the NTR University of Health Sciences for not considering her candidature for an MBBS seat under sports quota stipulated by government order (GO) No. 14. The HC frowned on GO No 14 issued by the Andhra Pradesh government's Youth Advancement, Tourism and Culture (Sports) Department, which sought inclusion of six more games in the sports quota apart from 28 which were added through GOs since 2008.

The six new games that the government wants to be included are: tennicoit, powerlifting, netball, throwball, sepaktakra and boxing. Holders of merit certificates in games included in the sports quota are eligible for MBBS and engineering seats. The bench recalled the earlier dismissal of a petition filed by another student who claimed to have participated in the senior national netball championship and was seeking an MBBS seat. Noting that sports quotas are existing without any sanction from the Constitution, the bench termed them as “inventions made for the purpose of diluting constitutional guarantees granted to SC, ST and BCs”.