Supreme Court upholds Telangana’s four-year local residency rule for local quota | Hyderabad News

Hyderabad: The Supreme Court has once again reaffirmed the rules governing local reservation in Telangana, holding that the mandatory four-year study requirement must be followed strictly in accordance with the Presidential Order.A Bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe dismissed a special leave petition filed by Jella Ankitha, observing: “We are not inclined to interfere with the impugned judgement and order passed by the high court. “Ankitha had challenged a Telangana high court order that rejected her claim for ‘local candidate’ status for undergraduate medical admissions for the 2026-27 academic year under a notification issued on Aug 4.The petitioner had completed her schooling from kindergarten to Class X in Telangana but pursued Intermediate education in Andhra Pradesh until April 2025. Citing GO No. 124, she argued that she should be treated as a local candidate based on a seven-year study criterion. She also contended that denying her local status in either of the successor States resulted in undue hardship for native students.However, the Telangana high court dismissed the plea, noting that the validity of the admission rules had already been upheld by the Supreme Court. A division bench observed that, since the apex court had accorded finality to the rules, there was no scope for reinterpreting the criteria for determining local status.Upholding the high court’s view, the Supreme Court rejected the contention that the provision was arbitrary and clarified that local reservation benefits are available only to students who have studied in Telangana for four consecutive years immediately preceding the qualifying examination for MBBS admissions.