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Activist Tehseen Poonawalla moves SC against 10% EWS quota

NEW DELHI: la on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court against the Centre’s decision to grant 10 per cent reservation to economically weaker section (EWS) of general category in public employment and education, including private educational institutions.

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Tribune News Service
New Delhi, January 22

Activist Tehseen Poonawalla on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court against the Centre’s decision to grant 10 per cent reservation to economically weaker section (EWS) of general category in public employment and education, including private educational institutions.

The petition challenging the Constitution (103rd Amendment) Act, 2019—which paved the way for grant of reservation to EWS candidates of general category—sought quashing of the law on the ground that backwardness for the purpose of reservation cannot be defined by “economic status alone”.

The PIL is likely to come up for hearing in the next few days.

This is the second petition against EWS quota law. A day after Parliament passed the constitutional amendment to provide for 10 per cent reservation to economically backward sections of General Category in government jobs and educational institutions, an NGO—Youth for Equality—had challenged its validity before the Supreme Court, contending it violated basic structure of the Constitution.

The law talks about a maximum of 10 per cent of seats/posts in addition to the existing reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs, taking total reservation to 59 per cent, much beyond the 50 per cent ceiling fixed by the Supreme Court in the Indra Shawney case popularly known as Mandal Case. It also extends reservation to private aided and unaided educational institutions.

In its petition, Youth for Equality challenged Article 15(6) and Article 16(6) of the Constitution added by the amendment on the ground that economic criterion cannot be the sole basis for reservation and that economic reservation cannot be limited to the general category alone.

Both the petitions pointed that the new quota law exceeds the 50 per cent ceiling fixed by the Supreme Court in Indra Shawney case cannot be breached.

The two petitions have demanded a stay on the operation of the Act.

Further, it said imposing reservations on unaided institutions was manifestly arbitrary as it went against Supreme Court’s Constitution Bench verdicts, the NGO contended.

“Both the Constitution Bench judgements in TMA Pai Foundation (2002) and PA Inamdar (2005) make it clear that the State’s reservation policy cannot be imposed on unaided educational institutions, and as they are not receiving any aid from the State, they can have their own admissions provided they are fair, transparent, non-exploitative and based on merit,” the Youth for Equality petition read. 

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