Supreme Court: Is there any limit to quota, what about concept of equality

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 19

As rival parties continued with their arguments for and against revisiting the 1992 Mandal verdict prescribing a 50 per cent ceiling on quota in government jobs and education, the Supreme Court on Friday wondered if no development had taken place in the country since Independence.

“Seventy years have passed since Independence…states are carrying out so many beneficial schemes. Can we accept that no development has taken place and that no backward caste has moved forward?” asked a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan.

The Bench pointed out that the Mandal verdict talked about reviewing the list and eliminate those who had come out from backwardness.

Defers plea against states’ resolutions

• Wondering if state legislatures have the right to express their opinion on central laws, the Supreme Court on Friday asked an NGO, which raised the matter before in a PIL, to do more research on the issue
• “We don’t want to create more problems than resolving the issue. We will see,” the Bench said.
• The petitioner has challenged the legislative competence of state Assemblies in passing resolutions against central laws like CAA and farm laws, contending the subjects fell under the Union List of the Seventh Schedule

“Yes, we have moved forward. But it’s not that backward classes have gone down from 50 per cent to 20 per cent. We still have starvation deaths… I am not trying to say Indra Sawhney is completely wrong and throw it in the dustbin. I am raising issues where 30 years have lapsed, the law has changed, the population has grown, backward persons may also have increased,” responded senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, who represented the Maharashtra Government. It’s about giving a bigger piece of the cake to the deprived sections, he added.

The Bench sought to know if there was no limit to quota what would happen to the concept of equality. “What about the resultant inequality? How many generations will you continue...?” it asked.

“It’s an indication by Parliament that we have not reached anywhere near the emancipation that we require for the backwards, the have-nots, the SCs/STs,” Rohatgi submitted.