How Horizontal and Vertical Quotas work ? | UPSC

• The Supreme Court last month clarified the position of law on the interplay of vertical and horizontal reservations.

• The case was related to the selection process to fill posts of constables in the state.

WHAT ARE VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL RESERVATIONS?

• It applies separately for each of the groups specified under the law.
• Horizontal reservation refers to the equal opportunity provided to other categories of beneficiaries such as women, veterans, the transgender community, and individuals with disabilities, cutting through the vertical categories.

HOW ARE THE TWO CATEGORIES OF QUOTAS APPLIED TOGETHER?

• The horizontal quota is applied separately to each vertical category, and not across the board.

• The interlocking of the two types of reservation throws up a host of questions on how certain groups are to be identified.

• Since quotas are fixed in percentages, what percentage of quota would be attributed to each?

WHAT WAS THE SAURAV YADAV CASE ABOUT?

It was this:

• Sonam Tomar and Rita Rani had secured 276.5949 and 233.1908 marks respectively.
• They had applied under the categories of OBC-Female and SC-Female respectively.
• OBC and SC are vertical reservation categories, while Female is a horizontal reservation category.
• The two candidates did not qualify in their categories.
• However, in the General-Female (unreserved-female) category, the last qualifying candidate had secured 274.8298 marks, a score that was lower than Tomar’s.

WHAT DID THE COURT DECIDE?

• The court ruled that if a person belonging to an intersection of vertical-horizontal reserved category had secured scores high enough to qualify without the vertical reservation, the person would be counted as qualifying without the vertical reservation.

• A similar question had arisen in the case of vertical reservations in the past, and the law had been settled similarly.
• If a person in the SC category secures a higher score than the cut-off for the general category, the person would be counted as having qualified under the general category instead of the SC quota.

WHAT WAS THE GOVERNMENT’S ARGUMENT?

• The government’s policy was to restrict and contain reserved category candidates to their categories, even when they had secured higher grades.
• The court said this was tantamount to ensuring that the general category was ‘reserved’ for upper castes.