– Ronita Torcato 

The Maharashtra government’s imposition of SC/ST/OBC quotas for First Year Junior College (FYJC) admissions in minority colleges for the 2025-26 academic year has sparked strong dissent from the affected institutions.

After communicating to the government their opposition to the reservations, the colleges filed writ petitions in the Bombay High Court where a Division Bench comprising Justices Makarand Karnik and Nitin Borkar asked the government to remove the controversial clause from its May 6 Government Resolution (GR) and “issue a corrigendum since it can be a bona fide mistake.”

The court has posted the matter for further hearing, urging government pleader Neha Bhide to “take instructions and inform” them today.

College principals said the controversial issue came to light only after the seat matrices of their institutions were made available on the admission portal.

The government pleader submitted that the state GR was intended to bring uniformity in FYJC admissions to which Justice Karnik questioned the government’s rationale, “Why do you bring in minority institutions?”

The Bench recalled that a similar GR was withdrawn in 2019.

The petitioner Maharashtra Association of Minority Educational Institutions (MAMEI) has written to the School Education Department requesting the immediate withdrawal of the reservations imposed.

MAMEI members include Jain, Sindhi and Christian colleges such as St Xavier’s College, Kishinchand Chellaram College, Jai Hind College, and National College among others. 

It may be noted that until the academic year 2024-25, minority colleges in Maharashtra retained 50 percent for their respective minority community, 10% for in-house students, 5% for management quota, and 35% as an “open category” filled purely on merit without reservations. This practice has been protected by various court rulings.

For the current academic year (2025-26), the state government’s FYJC admission portal began reflecting SC, ST, and OBC reservations on the 35 percent “open category” seats.

The Association also noted discrepancies in the calculation of management and in-house quota seats on the admission portal, and 

has asked the department to correct the calculation. It has also sought clarification in writing or an official GR that these reservations are not applicable to minority colleges, in compliance with judicial directives.

MAMEI cited a 2017 Bombay High Court ruling that set aside Mumbai University’s decision to impose reservations on minority colleges, reinforcing that such impositions are not legally sustainable. The Supreme Court has also upheld the autonomy of minority institutions in setting their own admission policies.

The Association contends that the government circulars are primarily applicable to staff recruitment in government departments and not to student admissions in minority-run institutions. The association has described the state’s move as “arbitrary and capricious” in the absence of formal intimation for such a significant policy change.

The Maharashtra government argues that it only wants to help students from backward classes gain admission to minority colleges. 

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