SC to decide on issue of linguistic minority quota in medical admission

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to examine a significant question affecting the children of defence personnel and central government employees, particularly those seeking medical admissions under linguistic minority quotas.

The issue arose from the case of a NEET UG 2025 candidate, whose mother tongue was Tamil and whose father was a bonafide domicile of Karnataka.

A bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Atul S Chandurkar acknowledged that many defence families faced obstacles when applying for state-specific reservations. The court observed that it is essential to lay down clear legal principles concerning the eligibility of linguistic minority candidates affected by mandatory relocations due to government service.

The candidate’s father, a retired surgeon of the Indian Navy, served the nation for 25 years, during which the family was compelled to relocate frequently due to the transferable nature of armed forces service.

Consequently, the petitioner completed her schooling from Classes 1 to 10 outside Karnataka, while studied Classes 11 and 12 within Karnataka. The candidate applied for state counselling under the Tamil Linguistic Minority quota, but her application was rejected by the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA), relying on Clause 13 of the E-Information Bulletin 2025.

The clause mandated 10 years of continuous study in Karnataka, from Class 1 to the qualifying examination, for candidates seeking linguistic minority reservation.

Challenging this rejection, the petitioner approached the Supreme Court, arguing that the 10-year continuous study requirement was arbitrary, illegal, and unconstitutional, particularly when applied to the children of defence personnel.

She contended that such students have no control over their place of schooling, as their residence is entirely dependent on their parents’ postings in national service. The petitioner submitted that linguistic identity is inherited, not determined by the location of schooling. "Therefore, denying minority reservation solely due to compulsory relocations violated constitutional guarantees of equality and minority protection, and resulted in unfair discrimination against children of ex-servicemen."

Senior advocate P P Hegde, appeared on behalf of the petitioner, while advocate Subhash Sagar represented the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA). The plea challenged the Karnataka High Court's order of July 17, 2025.

The court decided to take up the matter for detailed hearing on January 13, 2026. The court's decision may bring much-needed clarity and reshape admission policies affecting children of defence personnel, and central government employees nationwide.