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SC/ST quota in Houses must continue: Centre tells top court
Initially, the reservation was provided in Parliament and state assemblies under Article 334 for a period of 20 years.
The reservation for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in the Lok Sabha and state legislatures must continue, the Union government told a Constitution bench of the Supreme Court on Wednesday, defending the validity of a 2019 constitutional amendment that extended quotas for the two communities by another 10 years.
“We will place materials on record to strengthen the case that reservation can go on,” solicitor general Tushar Mehta submitted before a five-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud.
The Centre’s emphatic statement in favour of continuing with reservation for SCs and STs came a day after the Narendra Modi government’s decision to table a new constitutional amendment bill in the Lok Sabha to reserve “as nearly as may be”, one-third of seats for women in Parliament and state legislatures across the country. The proposed amendment also provided that one-third of the total number of seats reserved for SCs and STs shall be reserved for women of those categories in the Lok Sabha and legislative assemblies.
On Wednesday, the bench, which also included justices AS Bopanna, MM Sundresh, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, set about to hear a challenge to the validity of the 104th Constitutional Amendment Act of 2019 that extended reservations for SCs and STs by 10 years.
Initially, the reservation was provided in Parliament and state assemblies under Article 334 for a period of 20 years. Since 1980, the quota has been extended through five amendment acts, with the latest extension of 10 years granted in 2019, which is presently under challenge before the Constitution bench. Article 334 also provided for the reservation for the Anglo-Indian community. The quota for the Anglo-Indian community was not extended and was done away with by a constitutional amendment in January 2020.
The five-judge bench on Wednesday framed two issues for an authoritative pronouncement in the matter. The first issue will deal with whether the 104th Amendment Act, 2019 was unconstitutional while the second will relate to the exercise of the legislative power by Parliament to extend reservation of seats for SCs and STs in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. “Whether the exercise of the constituent power of amendment to extend the period prescribed for reservation under Article 334 is constitutionally valid,” stated the second issue to be determined by the Constitution bench.
In its order, the bench also clarified that the adjudication of the two issues being framed will not impinge on the legitimacy of amendments prior to 2014 that extended the reservation for SCs and STs. It added that the reference shall be known as ‘In Re: Article 334 of the Constitution’.
The court said that it would start hearing the matter from November 24, asking all the parties to submit their written submissions and compilation of cases within four weeks. It appointed advocates Puneet Jain and Chitvan Singhal as nodal counsel to prepare a common compilation and collaborate with all the lawyers in the matter to facilitate the proceedings.
Attorney general R Venkataramani and S-G Mehta appeared on behalf of the Centre and sought some time to place on record the Centre’s written submissions in support of the reservation for SCs and STs.
Senior counsel CA Sundaram and Gopal Sankaranarayanan appeared on behalf of some of the petitioners, opposing any further extension of the reservation and the exercise of power to do so.
The first petition in the matter was filed in the year 2000, questioning the validity of the 79th amendment in 1999, which amended Article 334 of the Constitution to extend the reservation in the Lok Sabha and state legislatures to SCs and STs and the Anglo-Indian community. In 2003, the matter was referred to a Constitution bench and it has remained pending ever since. Meanwhile, on January 21, 2002, Parliament passed the Constitution (104th Amendment) Act, and once again extended reservations for the SC and ST communities by another 10 years since it was set to expire on January 26, 2020.
Some of the key questions raised in the clutch of petitions claim that the impugned amendments deprive Indian citizens of their democratic rights, which include the right to freely cast votes in elections and to choose who to vote for and to stand for elections. Further, the petitions argue that the concept of such reservation violates the right to equality under Article 14, which entails equal opportunity for all citizens, including the right to equal representation in government. Repeated extensions of limited reservations appear to undercut equal representation for all, they added.
The petitions further contend that the amendment was against the basic features of the Constitution, which included democracy. A basic feature is an essential characteristic of the Constitution that cannot be amended or changed.
