Senior advocate A Mariarputham and counsel Sanjay Parikh argued that if the cut-off criteria is followed, no OBC candidate would get admission and the seats would have to be offered to general students category – defeating the purpose of the reservations. Under the 2006 Act, the central educational institutes were asked to increase their seats to accommodate OBC candidates without reducing the intake of general category candidates. 

    In the 2008 judgment in Ashoka Thakur case, the apex court had upheld the constitutional validity of 27% quota for OBC candidates but had warned against dilution of merit. Two judges – Justices Arijit Pasayat and C K Thakker – had recommended lowering the eligibility criteria for OBC candidates by 5% marks, while Justice Dalveer Bhandari was in favour of reducing it by 10% from the cut-off prescribed for general category. 

    A constitution bench in 2009 attempted to clarify the air, saying it should be fixed at 10% less than the cut-off prescribed for general candidates. But it appears the confusion between the cut-off and eligibility criteria continues to persist. 

    The argument of OBC candidates is that the central educational institution cannot shut the doors of admission to OBCs by resorting to the last cut-off of admitted general category candidates, which would make most backward class students ineligible for higher studies.