Supreme Court Upholds Telangana’s 4-Year Residency Rule For Domicile Quota In Medical Admissions

The Supreme Court held that students must study or reside in Telangana for four continuous years to qualify for the domicile quota in medical admissions, thereby allowing the State’s appeal against the High Court’s order.

The Court upheld the 2017 Rules, as amended in 2024, requiring candidates to have studied in Telangana for four consecutive years to be eligible for the "local candidate" quota in MBBS and BDS courses.

The bench comprising Chief Justice of India BR Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran said, “At the outset, we have to state that without a definition of what constitutes residence or at least without reference to a statute or rule prescribing the issuance of a residence certificate, the directions issued by the High Court would only result in an anomalous situation, making the reservation unworkable and open to a series of litigation.”

"The said proviso should allay and mitigate the grievances of those who claim that they were taken out of the State by compulsion of the movement of their parents outside the State by reason of employment in Government/All-India Services/ Corporations or Public Sector Undertakings constituted as an instrumentality of the State of Telangana as also defence and paramilitary forces who trace their nativity to the State, subject to the conditions thereunder. With only the said reservation, we uphold the Rules of 2017 as it stood amended in 2024," the Court held.

The Telangana High Court read down Rule 3(a) and 3(iii) of the 2017 Rules, holding that they would not apply to permanent residents of Telangana. The Court also directed the State to frame guidelines to define "permanent residents."

The Supreme Court stated, "We have already held that the pre-amended rule defining a local candidate was perfectly in order, which reasoning applies squarely to the amended rule also. There was no warrant for a reading down when the definition is clear, in consonance with the Presidential Order and similar rules having been upheld by this Court as coming out from the binding precedents. We find no reason to take a different view with respect to the amended rule also; 15% having been conceded to the All- India quota."