SC turns down Govt's plea on quota issue

The SC refuses to vacate its order staying the 27% quota for OBCs in central educational institutions, reports Satya Prakash.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to vacate its order staying the 27 per cent quota for OBCs in central educational institutions. Now it is clear that the controversial law cannot be implemented in the current academic year.

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A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan took note of the Centre’ s admission that the quota in central medical and other technical institutions could not be implemented from this academic year even if the court vacated the stay as concerned statutory bodies had not approved of an increase in seats. It said a central legislation intended to benefit all OBCs could not be allowed to benefit a few.

After rejecting the plea for vacating the stay for the third time, the bench started hearing the petitions challenging the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admissions) Act, 2006, which would continue on Thursday.

Anti-quota petitioners contended that vacating the stay would create confusion and violence in educational institutions. They said the Centre was in a hurry to implement the OBC quota without even providing details of increased seats, identifying beneficiaries and excluding the “creamy layer”, which was a constitutional requirement.

The court had on March 29 stayed implementation of the quota mainly for want of reliable data to determine the backwardness of the castes sought to be given the benefit.