Supreme Court rejects review pleas on EWS quota verdict

The Supreme Court has refused to reconsider its November verdict that upheld the validity of the central law providing 10% reservation benefits to EWS.

The Supreme Court has refused to reconsider its November verdict that upheld the validity of the central law providing 10% reservation benefits to economically weaker sections (EWS) as it dismissed a clutch of review petitions.

By its judgment on November 7, a five-judge constitution bench ruled 3-2 in favour of the 103rd Constitutional Amendment of 2019, upholding the EWS quota law.

Deciding the petitions through circulation in the judges’ chambers, the top court held that “there is no error apparent on the face of the record” and no case for review is made out under the Supreme Court Rules. “The review petitions are, therefore, dismissed,” stated the order released on Tuesday.

On May 9, the review petitions were considered by five judges – Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, justices Dinesh Maheshwari (now retired), S Ravindra Bhat, Bela M Trivedi and JB Pardiwala. The final legal recourse against the dismissal of a review petition is a curative plea.

By its judgment on November 7, a five-judge constitution bench ruled 3-2 in favour of the 103rd Constitutional Amendment of 2019, upholding the EWS quota law.

Justices Maheshwari, Trivedi and Pardiwala declared the law to be valid and not violating either the basic structure of the Constitution or the equality code. The then CJI, Uday Umesh Lalit, and justice S Ravindra Bhat, comprising the minority on the bench, held the EWS quota law to be discriminatory and exclusionary. Justice Bhat authored the dissenting judgment for himself and the CJI.

In their November judgment, while all five judges on the bench agreed that economic criteria could be a sound legal basis for affirmative action by the state, the two dissenting judges did not concur with the majority view on excluding socially and educationally backward classes (SEBC), scheduled castes (ST) and scheduled tribes (ST) from the benefit of the EWS quota law.

Significantly, the majority verdict at that time also held that the 50% ceiling on reservation is “not inviolable or inflexible”, marking a paradigm shift from the thumb rule that has governed reservations in India, preventing states from enforcing quotas that take the proportion above 50%, as laid down by a nine-judge bench in the 1992 Indra Sawhney judgment. The majority view noted that the 50% ceiling applied only to the provisions of the Constitution that existed at that time and cannot extend to the 2019 amendment.

But the two judges in the minority refrained from commenting on the 50% cap and instead sounded a word of caution against any categorical finding on the Indra Sawhney judgment. They pointed out that not only could the observation by the majority view could seal the fate of the 69% Tamil Nadu quota law, which is still pending before another bench, it may also lead to “further infractions” where reservation could be demanded as a right.

The EWS amendment was passed by Parliament in 2019 with broad support; at the time, it was seen as an effort to assuage the upper classes unhappy for what they saw as appeasement of backward and underprivileged classes. The court has been hearing the matter since then, but did not stay the law, which effectively took reservation to 60% in many states.

In their separate judgments, justices Trivedi and Pardiwala had in November highlighted the need to revisit the reservation system in India. Justice Trivedi suggested putting a time limit on all forms of reservation for “an egalitarian, casteless and classless society”, whereas justice Pardiwala underscored that “reservation should not continue for an indefinite period of time so as to become a vested interest”.

The court’s November ruling had come on a bundle of petitions that questioned the constitutional validity of EWS quota on the grounds that it breached the 50% ceiling under the 1992 judgment, and the amendment was unconstitutional for considering economic status as the sole criterion for identifying backwardness. The petitioners, comprising individuals and organisations, opposed reservation for EWS also on the ground that any affirmative action is meant for backward classes and that the law is bad for excluding those among SC, ST, and OBC from its purview.