By IANS,
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday upheld the validity of the constitutional provision for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) reservation in panchayats and municipal agencies, including the post of a chairperson.
The chairperson’s post could not be equated with solitary posts in the context of public employment, the court said.
However, the court said: “The upper ceiling of 50 percent vertical reservations in favour of Scheduled Castes (SCs), the Scheduled Tribes (STs) and OBCs should not be breached in the context of local self-government.”
The court said that the Article 243-D (6) and Article 243-T (6) were constitutionally valid since they are in the nature of provisions which “merely enable state legislatures to reserve seats and chairperson posts in favour of backward classes”.
The court said that Articles 243-D and 243-T formed a “distinct and independent constitutional basis for affirmative action”.
A Constitution Bench comprising Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justice R.V. Raveendran, Justice D.K. Jain, Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice J.M. Panchal said that “the nature and purpose of the reservation in the context of local self-government was considerably different from that of higher education and public employment”.
The apex court favoured caste census when it said it could not examine the claims about over-breadth in the quantum of reservations provided for OBCs under the impugned state legislations since there was “no contemporaneous empirical data”.
The court said: “The onus is on the executive to conduct a rigorous investigation into the patterns of backwardness that act as barriers to political participation…”
“We are of the view that the identification of backward classes under Article 243-D(6) and Article 243-T(6) should be distinct from the identification of socially and educationally backward classes (SEBCs) for the purpose of Article 15(4) and that of backward classes for the purpose of Article 16(4),” the court said.
Writing the judgment, Chief Justice Balakrishnan said that even when the provision for reservation in local bodies in rural and urban areas was made it “need not be for a period corresponding to the period of reservation for purposes of Articles 15(4) and 16(4), but can be much shorter”.
Articles 15(4) and 16(4) provide for the advancement of socially and educationally backwards, including the SCs and the STs.
The court said that the principles that have been evolved in relation to the reservation policies enabled by Articles 15(4) and 16(4) “cannot be readily applied in context of local self-government”.
The court said that the concerns about “disproportionate reservations should be raised by way of specific challenges against the state legislations”.
The judgment said that exception could only be made in order to safeguard the interests of the Scheduled Tribes in the matter of their representation in panchayats located in the Scheduled Areas.
The court verdict came in the wake of the challenge to the constitutional validity of some aspects of the reservation policy prescribed for the composition of elected local self-government institutions.
In particular, the contentions concentrated on the provisions that enable reservation in favour of OBCs and those which contemplate the reservation of chairperson’s position in an elected local self-government institution.