MBBS Admissions: Allahabad High Court Rejects Senior Citizen’s Plea For 1 Per Cent Reservation

Is reservation quota available for senior citizens in getting admission in MBBS? When a senior citizen filed a petition seeking 1 per cent quota for senior citizens in the NEET entrance examinations, the Allahabad High Court dismissed the plea. A Division Bench comprising Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Manjive Shukla disposed of an intra-court appeal which sought a 1 per cent quota for senior citizens in MBBS and other undergraduate medical courses. 

The high court clarified that decisions related to reservations in education fall under the competitive legislature or executive rather than the judiciary.

The legal proceedings began with the special appeal filed by the appellant, who challenged a judgment dated August 24, 2026, passed by a single judge in this regard. In the original writ petition, the appellant had sought a writ of mandamus (an order by a court to direct a lower court, government official, or a public agency to perform their mandatory duty), requesting a direction to be issued to the respondents, including the Union Ministry of Education, to grant a 1 per cent special quota for senior citizens to get admission in MBBS through the NEET exam. 

The single judge who heard the original petition dismissed the plea, stating that “these are policy matters” and that quota creation requires executive policy decisions.

Arguments

The counsel representing the appellant argued that the single judge misinterpreted the judicial precedent of Census Commissioner vs. R. Krishnamurthy (2015), and that the precedent doesn’t apply to this case. The counsel argued that in that case the Madras High Court directed the government to frame a policy, whereas in this case, the appellant is only seeking consideration of a pending representation.

On the other side, the Deputy Solicitor General of India represented the respondents. The counsel of the National Testing Agency (NTA) stated that NTA is only an examining body governed by law. 

The counsel further argued that there is no statutory provision that grants reservation to senior citizens for getting admission in medical courses. The counsel contended that the appellant’s demand for a quota is not based on any existing law, and thus, the appellant has no legal right to demand a mandamus application.  

Court Observation And Judgment

The Court heard the arguments and underlined the fundamental legal requirement for issuing a writ of mandamus. It observed that a mandamus lies only if there is a mandatory statutory duty or an obligation. Since no existing law guarantees a reservation quota for senior citizens, the demand is not founded on an enforceable right.

When the Court asked whether any age-limit applies to MBBS admission, the counsel could not inform about any such restriction.

The two-judge Bench upheld the judgment passed by the single-judge Bench in August 2026, finding no error in it. The Court held that while the judiciary cannot issue a mandamus in policy domain matters, the appellant remains free to pursue his request directly to legislative authorities.