The Meaning of Merit

Context:  The recent Supreme Court verdict in Saurav Yadav vs State of Uttar Pradesh exposes the challenges in appreciating the differences between horizontal and vertical reservations in India.

Relationship between vertical and horizontal reservation:

• Vertical Reservations: Articles 15(4) and 16(4) enable vertical reservation based on slotting the population in terms of SC, ST, OBC and General Category.
• Horizontal Reservation: It cuts across all the above categories and includes a reservation for women, differently-abled, freedom fighters, army veterans, and other categories.
• Issues with the relationship: describing the interesting miniature sociology
  • Merit is compromised: There have been cases where a general category female candidate with lower marks got selected while the female candidate from Other Backward Class (OBC) failed despite higher marks. (identified in Anil Kumar Gupta v/s State of Uttar Pradesh)
  • Open category seats are used as a quota for non-reserved categories: UP and MP have excluded reserved category women for consideration in the general category.

Deconstructing the opposition between merit and reservation: In principle, reservation is an instrument for identifying merit in individuals from historically marginalized communities.

• Inclusion must not be seen as the antithesis of efficiency and merit; in fact, inclusion and substantive equality are the aims of government.
  • Horizontal reservation ought to be generally understood in compartmentalized terms, as a nod to recognition of inequalities within each vertical category.
  • Thus, women from all categories should be eligible for the open category.
• Inclusion also takes place in the context of criteria of selection. (i.e. some OBC should not be preferred over others.) - fairness in selection criteria
• The opposition between merit and reservation needs to be deconstructed — not because there is no such thing as merit (as defenders of reservation claim), or because there should not be the reservation (as critics of reservation claim).

 Conclusion: Members of the reserved category must be fully considered as falling under the rubric of being potentially meritorious.