New Delhi, Jul 9 (IANS): The Supreme Court on Friday declined to entertain a plea by an advocate seeking directions to fix time limits for expiry of caste-based reservations in education.

A bench comprising Justices L. Nageswara Rao and S. Ravindra Bhat told the petitioner that the court is not inclined to entertain the petition.

The plea filed by Subhash Vijayran, who is also an MBBS doctor, argued that in reservation, a seat of a more meritorious candidate is given to a less meritorious one, and this policy is directly responsible for stagnating the progress of the nation. The plea argued that today people fight and spill blood for the backward tag.

The plea said: "Now, we have well-off doctors, lawyers, engineers, who flaunt their backward tag to gain admissions in PG courses via reservations. Even the Institutions of National Importance (INIs) like AIIMS, NLUs, IITs, IIMs, etc are not spared. Every year 50 per cent of their very scarce seats are sacrificed on the altar of reservations. For how long this will continue?"

The plea contended that if the candidate is made capable to compete in the open, it will be an empowering exercise for that candidate and it will contribute to the progress of the nation.

The plea cited Supreme Court's judgment in the Ashok Kumar Thakur case and argued that majority of the judges were of the view that review was required after every 5 years, on reservation in education. However, no such review has been done till date. After court declined to entertain the plea, the petitioner withdrew it.