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HomeIndiaGovernanceSupreme Court refuses to stay Modi govt's decision to implement 10% upper-caste...

Supreme Court refuses to stay Modi govt’s decision to implement 10% upper-caste quota

At this stage, the Supreme Court is not inclined to pass any order, said CJI Ranjan Gogoi.

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New Delhi: The Supreme Court Friday refused to stay the Centre’s decision to grant 10 per cent quota in jobs and admissions to poor candidates in the general category.

The apex court, however, agreed to examine the validity of the law and issued the notice to the Centre on the plea filed by businessman and Congress supporter Tehseen Poonawala.

“At this stage, we are not inclined to pass any order,” said a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi.

Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for Poonawala, told the bench that his only grievance at this stage was that this quota should not breach the ceiling of 50 per cent as mandated by the apex court.

The bench, also comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna, had earlier issued notice to the Centre on similar petitions and on Friday ordered tagging of the fresh plea of Poonawalla with pending ones.

Petitions have been filed by parties, including ‘Janhit Abhiyan’ and NGO ‘Youth For Equality’, challenging the Centre’s decision.

The petition, filed by Youth For Equality through its president Kaushal Kant Mishra, has sought the quashing of the Constitution (103 Amendment) Act, 2019, saying that the economic criterion cannot be the sole basis for reservation.

It said the bill violates basic feature of the Constitution as reservation on economic grounds cannot be limited to the general category and the overall 50 per cent ceiling limit cannot be breached.

In the present form, the upper limit of quota goes up to 60 per cent which violated the decisions of the apex court.

Referring to the nine-judge bench decision of the apex court in the landmark 1992 Indira Sawhney case, the petition said the latest amendment completely violated the Constitutional norm that economic criterion cannot be the only basis of reservation.

It also said that the amendments fail to consider that Articles 14 and 16 form the basic feature of equality, and that they have been violated with the doing away of the restraints that were imposed on the reservation policy, i.e. the 50 per cent ceiling limit and the exclusion of economic status as a sole criterion.

The fresh filed by businessman Poonawalla has sought quashing of the bill, saying that backwardness for the purpose of reservation cannot be defined by “economic status alone”.

The top court had earlier refused to stay the Modi government’s decision to grant the reservation but agreed to examine the validity of the constitutional amendment which paved the way for this quota.

In poll year, the Modi government has come out with the constitutional amendment bill giving quota benefits to the poor among general category candidates.

The quota will be over and above the existing 50 per cent reservation to SCs, STs and Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha cleared the bill on January 8 and 9 respectively, and has been signed by President Ram Nath Kovind.


Also read: Quota seats for SC, ST students in higher education remain vacant, OBCs fare better


 

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SourcePTI

2 COMMENTS

  1. I agreed with this from the bottom of my heart…. Every person who r willing to write these exam doesn’t belong to the settled family …. during preparation also people will think about there future in such a way that no number is drr to count how many times they think about what will happen🤔
    by knowing this wonderful news.. till now people who r in a depression about their life, will payoff their thanks to the UPSC management.
    Tqqu soo much…for this stuff🙌🙏
    Hope Ur prestigious decision will offer a prestigious life to the indians
    Jai hind…🙏🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳
    WHAT WE DO IS FOR THE NATION…
    WHAT WE THINK IS FOR THE NATION…. &
    WHAT WE ACHIEVED IS FOR THE NATION…..

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