SC decision to allot seats to GC against social justice: CPI

Chennai, Sep 16 (UNI) The Tamil Nadu unit of the Communist Party of India (CPI) today said the Supreme Court's decision to allot to General Category, seats reserved for Other Backward Classes (OBC) in higher educational institutions, but remain unfulfilled, would go against social justice.

In a statement here, Party State unit Secretary D Pandian urged the Centre to take immediate steps to protect social justice by ensuring that the seats reserved for the OBCs were given to them.

He said the apex court order to allot to open quota, 432 seats reserved for OBCs in IITs and IIMs, on the ground that they could not be filled up for want of ''eligible students'' would go against social justice.

Mr Pandian said the entrance examinations for admission to these higher educational institutions were only competitive in nature and not qualifying examination.

Hence, it would be only reasonable to lower the cut-off marks and the OBC students were given admission, he said, adding, this would only agur well for the concept of reservation.

The decision to fix a cut-off mark and leaving the seats, reserved for OBCs, unfulfilled would ultimately pave for abolition of reservation, Mr Pandian apprehended.

The Centre should immediately take steps to rectify the shortcoming and render justice, he said.

The decision to remove creamy layer from the purview of reservation had already affected the Backward Classes, he said and urged the Centre to allow the creamy layer to enjoy the benefit of reservation.

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