By IANS
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Thursday reserved its verdict on the central government’s contentious law that aimed at enhancing caste-based reservation in higher educational institutions.
A five-judge constitution bench, headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, reserved the verdict on the legality of reserving 27 percent seats for backward caste students in higher educational institutions. The court held a marathon, 25-day hearing on the issue in the last three months since Aug 7.
The other judges on the constitution bench were Justice Arjit Pasayat, Justice C.K Thakkar, Justice R.V Raveendran and Justice Dalveer Bhandari.
The bench reserved the verdict after hearing arguments from a battery of legal luminaries representing various sides, including the government and a bunch of petitioners supporting and opposing the law.
While the central government placed its view, supporting the legislation, through Solicitor general G.E. Vahanvati and Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramanian, legal luminaries like Ram Jethmalani, K. Parasarn, Ravi Varma Kumar supported the reservation law on behalf of various political parties like Rashtriya Janata Dal of Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and Dravidra Munnetra Kazhagam of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi.
The arguments on behalf of the petitioners opposed to the quota were led by senior counsel Harish Salve, K.K. Venugopal, Fali S. Nariman, P.P. Rao, Rajeev Dhavan and others.
Soon after the government notified the Central Educational Institution (Reservation in Admissions) Act, 2006, January this year, providing for the 27 percent reservation to the students of Other Backward Classes, a bunch of petitioners challenged the government notification before the apex court.
The petitioners, including Youth for Equality, Citizens for Equality, the Residents Doctors’ Welfare Forum and several other students organisations also challenged the legality of the Constitution (93rd Amendment) Act.
A two-judge bench, headed by Justice Arijit Pasayat, suspended the law on March 29 for a year. The five-judge constitution bench began examining the constitutionality of the suspended law Aug 7 and concluded the hearing Thursday.
During the hearing of the law, the bench Wednesday unanimously indicated that more privileged among the backward classes people, euphemistically known as `creamy layer’, should not be included among the beneficiaries of the government quota law.
During the arguments, the bench also indicated the need for having a time-limit for such laws.
During the arguments, counsel from both sides – which included PMK counsel Ravi Varma Kumar – stressed the need for a fresh caste-based census to determine the percentage of the lower caste people in the country’s population as the laws for quota were based on castes.
“It’s strange that we consider caste as the sole criteria to determine the backwardness of the people, yet we do not want carry out a caste-based survey to determine their population,” contended Salve Thursday while exposing the lacuna in the government’s reservation policy.
Counsel from opposing sides often concurred that the backwardness should be determined on the basis of economic criteria, which would enable the government to provide reservations even to the poor among communities other than the Hindus.
But the points of unanimity that emerged among the counsel were few and far between. The two sides often appeared at each other’s throats.
Arguing on behalf of the RJD, former law minister Ram Jethmalani Tuesday told the apex court that high caste people have been ruling the country since independence and governance by them has only bred corruption.
Counsel supporting the law on the new quota contended that it was centuries of oppression of the lower caste people by those belonging to the upper castes that resulted in their backwardness and it was time for them to make some sacrifices to atone their sins.