Supreme Court to review center’s decision on quota to economically weak gen category
On Friday, the Supreme Court issued a notice to the Central Government on petitions challenging the general category reservation system of 10% to the economically weak section. The bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjeev Khanna has refused to stay 10% reservation. The Supreme Court has issued notice to the Central Government on the other petitions, including Youth for Equality, for giving 10 percent reservation on economic basis to the upper castes in jobs. In this petition, the constitution amendment has been challenged in the Supreme Court. It has been said in the petition that this amendment is against the decision of the Supreme Court and reservations on economic basis can not be given.
NGO Youth for Equality and Kaushal Kant Mishra has requested in the petition to abrogate this bill, that reservation on a single economic basis can not be given. The petition states that this bill violates the constitution because reservation can not be limited only on the economic basis till the general category and 50 per cent reservation limit can not be crossed.
President Ramnath Kovind sanctioned the general reservation bill being seen as the master stroke of the Modi government. The President signed this. At the same time, the path of ten percent reservation in Government jobs and educational institutions has become clear. The government has issued the notification. States have started implementing this. These include Gujarat, Jharkhand and UP.
According to this bill the formula for reservations will be 50% + 10%. Those who have less than 8 lakh annual income will get the benefit of reservation. Those upper classes who have land less than 5 acres of land will get the benefit of reservation. The benefits of this reservation will be available to those who have less than 1000 square feet of residential land.
Those who have a residential plot of less than 100 yards in the notified municipal area will be able to avail of this reservation. Apart from this, the people who have a residential plot of less than 200 yards in the non-notified municipal area will get the benefit of this reservation.
Constitutional social disparity is the basis of reservation
Actually, the provision of reservation in the Constitution is on the basis of social inequality. At the same time, the recent decision of the Modi Government is to give reservation to the upper castes on economic basis. According to the Constitution, reservations can not be given on the basis of income and property. As per Article 16 (4) of the Constitution, the basis of reservation can only be social inequality. Currently, the total reservation of backward classes is 49.5 percent. In this, Scheduled Castes (SCs) get 27 per cent reservation Scheduled Tribes (ST) 15 percent and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) get 7.5. In the year 1963, the Supreme Court had said that the reservation limit can not be extended to more than 50 per cent.
At the same time, the Supreme Court has said in all its previous decisions that granting reservation on economic basis is a violation of the basic right of equality.
In the year 2016, the Gujarat High Court declared the announcement of the Gujarat government to give reservation to economically backward people as unconstitutional. The Gujarat government talked of giving 10 percent reservation to families having annual income of less than 6 lakh rupees.
