Govt tries to outsmart SC quota stay

New Delhi: The Supreme Court stay on the OBC quota in elite educational institutions may have come as a serious blow to the Government's take on the issue, but the pro-reservation lobby is not sitting easy.

HRD Minister Arjun Singh on Saturday announced that the Centre will take all Constitutional measures to get the Supreme Court stay vacated.

"Supreme Court has not rejected anything. We will take all Constitutional measures to vacate the stay", PTI quoted Singh as saying. He added that Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam will be meeting with him to discuss the issue.

Singh, however, made it clear that the Congress-led coalition did not want to get into collision course with the SC and that it was the right of the Court to interpret law. "The Supreme Court has not rejected anything...We will take all Constitutional measures to get the stay vacated," PTI quoted him as saying.

While referring to the Supreme Court ruling that the 1931 census could not be a determinative factor for identifying the OBCs for the purpose of providing reservation, Singh said that a decision on whether there was a need to restart the process of a caste-based census will have to be decided by the all-party meeting.

The ruling could once again set the stage for another clash between legislature and judiciary, as this is being seen as a setback to the Government.

Singh said that the all-party meet would be held after consultations within the ruling UPA and with the key outside supporter Left parties. He added that the meeting will be convened by the prime minister after the SAARC summit to deliberate the issue. "Unless all parties are on board, nothing can be done," he said.

The SC verdict The Bench comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat and L S Panta ruled on the batch of petitions filed by various organisations and individuals challenging the decision as being ultra vires (unconstitutional).

Various organisations had challenged the Centre's decision to implement the quota, claiming that there was no relevant data on the number of OBCs in the country.

The Bench said, "We are of the view that the impugned notification and enforcing the reservation for OBCs in the educational institutions must be put on hold as the Government has failed to provide any authentic or reliable data to justify its policy of reservation.”

SC held that Section 6 of the Constitution was not applicable since no data on who constitutes OBCs in India has been collected in the last 76 years.

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"The Centre has to determine who are the socially and economically backward people of India, before the Central Educational Institutions Act can be given effect," the Bench stated.

However, the Bench clarified that the benefit of reservation for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes could not be withheld. It said that the Centre could go ahead with the OBC identification process to determine the backward classes.

This means that if the Government can provide the court with authentic data on who constitute the OBCs in India, then reservation may be implemented in favour of people who genuinely need it.

"Reservation cannot be permanent and appear to perpetuate backwardness," the Bench observed.

While saying this, however, the Apex Court reprimanded the Centre, saying that the Centre should stay away from dividing the society on caste basis and should behave in a more responsible way.

The Centre's Justification The Centre had earlier justified the decision to implement reservation saying that Parliament had power to enact laws and that if the issue of giving OBCs reservation is not addressed, then there could be law and order problems in the country.

It had also maintained that general category students would not be affected by the quota, as the number of general seats has been increased proportionately.

Brushing this aside, the Bench said that the OBC quota was just vote bank politics and said it was forced to take the decision against the Government as the Government did not implement the SC's last two orders.

It said that a final decision would be taken only after proper documents related to OBCs were submitted.

The Government had enacted the Central Educational Institutions Act last year which provided for the reservations in institutes of higher education.

The hearing on the matter has been adjourned till the August 3, 2007.