The Supreme Court has said the general category vacancies in public employment is open to allincluding aspirants belonging to reserved categories like other backward classes (OBCs) and Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs). A bench comprising justices U U Lalit, Ravindra Bhat and Hrishikesh Roy said that disallowing meritorious candidates of reserved categories to migrate and get selected under general category would amount to communal reservation. The principle that candidates belonging to any of the vertical reservation categories are entitled to be selected in Open or General Category is well settled. It is also well accepted that if such candidates belonging to reserved categories are entitled to be selected on the basis of their own merit, their selection cannot be counted against the quota reserved for the categories for vertical reservation that they belong, Justice Lalit, who wrote for himself and Justice Roy, said.