SC refers petitions against EWS quota to Constitution Bench

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 5

Petitions challenging the Centre’s decision to grant 10 per cent reservation to economically weaker section (EWS) of the General category in public employment and education, including private educational institutions will be decided by a Constitution Bench.

A three-judge Bench headed by Justice SA Bobde, which had reserved its judgement on the issue on July 31 last year, on Wednesday decided to refer it to a five-judge Constitution Bench.

The verdict was pronounced one year and five days after the Bench reserved it.

The law is already operational as there is no stay on it. Now the CJI will constitute the Constitution Bench that will hear the matter.

There are around 20 petitions challenging the Constitution (103rd Amendment) Act, 2019, which paved the way for grant of reservation to the EWS candidates of general category. The petitioners have sought quashing of the law on the ground that backwardness for the purpose of reservation cannot be defined by “economic status alone”.

The Centre has defended the EWS quota, saying it intended to uplift around 200 million people who were below the poverty line even after over 70 years of independence. Nobody can say such people should not be given a “helping hand” to uplift them, Attorney General KK Venugopal had submitted.

“Poor people need the help of the state, not the rich ones,” the top court had observed.

The law talks about a maximum of 10 pc of seats/posts in addition to the existing reservations for the SCs, the STs and the 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 the Mandal Case.

It also extends reservation to private aided and unaided educational institutions.

The PILs — including those filed by Youth for Equality and Tehseen Poonawala — challenged its validity, contending it violated the basic structure of the Constitution.