New Delhi: The anti-quota petitioners on Wednesday described the UPA Government’s legislation providing 27 per cent reservation to OBCs in Central educational institutions as ‘usurpation’ of judicial power.
Contending that Parliament acted in a ‘hasty’ way in enacting the controversial OBC quota law, the petitioners pleaded before the court that the Central Educational Institutions (Reservations in Admission) Act, 2006 shows that the entire exercise should be treated as unreasonable.
Pleading for the petitioners, senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan said before a five-judge Constitution Bench, headed by Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan, that the legislation providing for reservation was never debated seriously in Parliament where lawmakers of ruling coalition and some others were only engaged in praising their leadership.
Noted jurist Fali Nariman questioned the criteria of ‘caste’ as the starting point of identification of socially and educationally backward classes (SEBCs) when the country strive towards the ideal of casteless society.
“The assumption that SEBCs of citizens had to be identified from some readily available data (such as caste) is not well founded,” he said, adding that “the backward classes of citizens have to be identified with reference to one or more of the criteria and when so identified those grouped together would the form a class of citizens who are socially and educationally backward.”
Nariman said income of family, education of father and mother, occupation of guardian is obvious criteria sufficient to identify backward groups or communities.
“It is not as if caste has always been the starting point for determination of SEBCs,” Nariman said. He cited the report of the Kaka Kalelkar Commission, which in 1955 had said that there was a need to get rid of the caste as criteria for identifying backwardness.
Nariman said if caste would be the basis for identifying the SEBC, it would be limited only to certain groups of Hindu faith and those of other faith like Christianity and others will be left out.
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The senior advocate said if caste was to be the starting point it would be impossible to weed out the so-called ‘Creamy Layer’.
Dhavan said the lawmakers failed to debate the issue in Parliament even though it was a crucial decision having widespread ramifications.
“The crux of the debate went on congratulating Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh and the legislation was not seriously debated,” he said.
Reading out the passages of the debate relating to passing of the Act in Lok Sabha, he said the legislation was referred to as ‘brave and bold’ and the only question was “who is the champion for the cause of OBCs.”
This, he said was a ‘political compulsion’ for the Congress as it was clear for the party that Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the two major states, had gone out of its hands. The senior advocate said the legal aspect, mode of implementation and the aspect relating to identification of the class to be given the benefit was never discussed.
Dhavan said when the people had started protesting against the controversial law, the legislators in the Rajya Sabha said those youngsters are ‘young misguided youth’. “Their only concern was that Arjun Singh was being humiliated,” he said.
(With PTI inputs)
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