New Delhi: The Supreme Court will on Friday decide the criteria for admitting OBC students into central institutions like Hyderabad Central University and Jawaharlal Nehru University under the 27% quota provision, a contentious issue over which there seems to be considerable confusion. 

    A vacation bench of Justices P Sathasivam and A K Patnaik will address a specific ambiguity – should the cutoff for OBCs be 10% less than the cut-off marks for general category or should it be 10% less than the eligibility marks for general students? 

    While cutoffs for general students are very high – it touched 100% in the first list at a DU college this year – in most institutes, admission criteria for general candidates is 50% and OBC candidates who score over 40% are considered for admission under the Central Educational Institutes (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006. 

    Citing a judgment, advocate Indu Malhotra on Wednesday argued the criteria was to be 10% less than the last cut-off for general category candidates. She said JNU was flouting this norm by admitting students who had scored 10% less than the eligibility criteria for general category.