LUCKNOW, Sept. 30 -- The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Tuesday held that meritorious reserved-category candidates must be treated as applicants from the unreserved category at the screening stage itself if they secure marks above the minimum cut-off prescribed for the unreserved category without availing any relaxation or concession. With this observation, the court directed the state government to formulate and clarify its policy on the issue within three months.

The division bench of Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Manjive Shukla while allowing a special appeal filed by Bhavna Yadav and others also said marks obtained in the screening examination have a substantial bearing on the final selection.

The bench observed that t...