New Delhi, Dec. 4: A fresh round in the reservation battle has begun, but this time it could remain in the courts and off the streets.

The Supreme Court today issued a notice to the Centre on a petition — filed by doctors of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences — asking for the current “caste-based” reservation policy to be scrapped.

The Centre has eight weeks to file a counter-affidavit explaining the “basis for the determination of who belongs to other backward class”.

The bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and Lokeshwar Singh Panta asked the government to also explain the modalities to be adopted for implementation of the 27 per cent OBC reservation.

Additional solicitor-general Gopal Subramaniam, who represented the Centre, was also asked to produce in six weeks the report of a parliamentary standing committee on the quota.

Based on what the Centre writes in its counter-affidavit, the apex court could see some heated action.

“The courts, not the streets, will now be the theatre of action,” said AIIMS Resident Doctors’ Association president Kumar Harsh.

The petition mentions a long-standing demand of the AIIMS anti-quota lobby — that an independent non-political committee be set up to review the reservation policy.

AIIMS doctors have been at the forefront of the anti-reservation campaign that rocked educational institutes in May immediately after the OBC quota plan was announced.

After sporadic street protests that often turned violent, most of the anti-quota medicos now, it seems, want to stick to their books.

“At the end of the day, no one really wants to fail in their studies for the reservation issue,” one of the most active AIIMS anti-quota doctors said. Instead, inspiration is being sought from their unexpectedly good performance in the recent Jawaharlal Nehru University students’ union polls.

Competing for the first time in the polls, Youth for Equality, a front for anti-quota activists, won 10 council seats and came in second — although by some margin — in two of the four central panel seats at JNU.

“More and more students are joining us,” claimed Vinod Patro, the founder of Youth for Equality.

And the courts, Patro hopes, will “continue to back” the anti-quota protesters.