The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notices to the Centre and the Central Board of Secondary Education on a petition seeking 10% reservation for economically weaker sections in the Central Teacher Eligibility Test, 2019, PTI reported.

A vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna have sought replies from the Centre and CBSE by July 1, the next date of hearing. The exam is scheduled to be held on July 7.

The bench was hearing a plea by some candidates belonging to economically weaker sections who are planning to appear for the teacher eligibility test. The petitioners told the Supreme Court that the CBSE had published an advertisement on January 23, 2019, notifying the test, but it did not mention the 10% reservation for candidates belonging to economically weaker sections.

The vacation bench had dismissed the plea on Monday, saying reservation was not applicable to qualifying examinations. “The notification for the examination does not give any reservation to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe either,” the bench had said, according to PTI. The bench later agreed to hear the matter on Thursday.

The Parliament had passed the Constitution (One Hundred and Third) Amendment Act, 2019, on January 9 and It came into effect five days later. The law provides 10% reservations in aided and unaided institutions to the economically backward from upper castes.