Satya Prakash
New Delhi, September 13
With the petitioners alleging that the reservation in government jobs and education given to economically weaker sections (EWS) under the 103rd Constitutional Amendment was a fraud on the Constitution, the Supreme Court on Tuesday posed several questions to them over their claim that reservation was not meant for poverty alleviation.
Five-judge Bench questions petitioners
There are 40 petitions challenging the 103rd Constitutional Amendment Act, 2019, which introduced 10 per cent EWS quota in public employment and educational institutions over and above existing 50 per cent quota to SCs, STs and OBCs
Commencing arguments on petitions against the EWS quota, senior counsel G Mohan Gopal termed it a fraud on the Constitution. The ground reality is that it is dividing the country along caste lines, he told a five-judge Constitution Bench, led by CJI UU Lalit.
Maintaining that she was not opposed to affirmative action, Meenakshi Arora told the Bench ndash; which included Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, Justice S Ravindra Bhat, Justice Bela M Trivedi and Justice JB Pardiwala — that it had to be done without diluting the nature of reservation.
“Reservation is a class-based remedy to counteract injustice and provide reparation for classes which have been out of the power structure with a view to increasing their representation. Reservation on the basis of ‘EWS’ is individualistic. It is not poverty alleviation programme as has been held in the Indira Sawhney judgment,” Arora submitted.
Justice Bhat contested her arguments that the EWS was without any “guard rails” unlike in the case of SCs/STs for whom conditions such as efficiency of administration and adequacy of representation were prescribed.
