The Supreme Court today heard a batch of pleas filed by the Tamil Nadu Government challenging a Madras High Court decision to quash a state quota law that provided 10.5% special reservation to Vanniyars, a most backward community.
A three-judge bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao, B.R. Gavai, and B.V. Nagarathna issued an interim order indicating that while no appointments will be made according to the quota, existing appointments will not be disrupted. It directed Varun Chopra, D. Kumaran and Parthiban to prepare a compilation of all the pleadings including a written note of submissions and circulate it by February 10, 2022.
In view of the importance and implication of the matters, the court concluded that the interim order passed by the Madras High Court on August 25, 2021 shall continue. In addition, it was directed that no admissions and appointments shall be made till February 15, the date on which it is listed for the next hearing.
The bench was in favour of devising an interim arrangement and hearing the matter at length in February 2022 rather than staying the matter. It was submitted that 75,000 students have been admitted in accordance with the new legislation. Senior Advocate Nagamuthu pointed out that no admission has been made in agriculture, engineering. The admissions have taken place only arts colleges.
Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan submitted that the government has not taken additional steps after the impugned judgment. Furthermore, State has not filed appeals against all the parties. Therefore they should not take shelter from the court’s order.
Also Read: Allahabad High Court grants conditional bail to rape case accused Akash Gupta
On the another hand, Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave submitted that the new act only sub-classifies 69% of the Vanniyar population. Moreover, the landmark judgement in Indira Sawhney recognized that sub-division is different. Therefore, the High Court should not have interfered with the decision.
On November 1, 2021, the Madras High Court ruled that the statute, Tamil Nadu Special Reservation of Seats in Educational Institutions including Private Educational Institutions and Appointments or Posts in the services under the State within the Reservation for the Most Backward Classes and Denotified Communities Act, 2021, approved by the Tamil Nadu legislature allowing 10.5 per cent internal reservation to the Vanniakula Kshatriya community within the 20% reserved for the Most Backward Classes (MBCs) in education and public employment, was unconstitutional.
According to the law, it was enacted to address the demand of Vanniyars, an MBC caste, based on assertions that they are the dominant community but are unable to compete with the other MBC/DNC communities.
At least 35 writ petitions have been filed at the High Court’s principal seat as well as its Madurai Bench challenging the law’s legitimacy and was allowed by Justices M. Duraiswamy and K. Murali Shankar who concluded that the statute was passed without any measurable data on the socio-educational condition of Vanniyars in the services, and that there were no objective criteria for sub-classifying Vanniyars.
“The enactment has been passed by the State without any quantifiable data on population, socio-educational status and representation of the backward classes in the services and the sub-classification done by virtue of the impugned Act solely based on population data, in the absence of any objective criteria, is illegal in the eye of law and in violation of the Constitution of India,”
-said the High Court.
The government had contended that the statute under question categorises other MBCs and denotified communities (DNCs) and offers 7 per cent and 2.5 per cent reservations for them as well. Therefore the question of preferential treatment should not arise.
The petitioners, on the other hand, had argued that, following the insertion of the 102nd amendment to the Constitution of India, the State Government no longer has the authority to identify or classify any community as backward; instead, it is the sole domain of Parliament, and thus the Act violates Articles 338-B and 342-A of the Constitution of India.
Furthermore, the National Commission for Backward Classes, which is a constitutional body established under Article 333-B of the Indian Constitution and is under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, will be the competent authority to notify a caste. The President may, by order, appoint a Commission consisting of such persons as he thinks fit to investigate the conditions of socially and educationally backward classes and the difficulties under which they work and to make recommendations as to the steps that the Union or any State should take to remove such difficulties, according to Article 340 of the Indian Constitution.
Also Read: