CPM calls SC order on Quota report 'encroachment'

New Delhi, Oct 17 (UNI) A day after the Supreme Court sought a report of the OBC quota Standing Committee, the CPI (M) today threw its weight behind the government saying it was ''encroachment on the powers of Parliament''.

A ''surprised'' CPI (M) polit bureau supported Information and Broadcasting Minister P R Dasmunsi's statement that the report on reservation in elite educational institutions should be first tabled in Parliament.

The parliamentary standing committee is accountable to the people of the country, the polit bureau said expressing surprise at the court order yesterday.

''...the Order of the Court amounts to encroachment on the powers of the Parliament,'' a party statement said in its first reaction to the order that said ''a copy of the report of the Standing Committee has to be placed before this court in sealed cover''.

The court had also said it was viewing seriously the proposal to extend 27 per cent reservation to OBC candidates in institutions like the IITs and IIMs without specific data on reservation.

Mr Dasmunsi said yesterday the government would consult the Law Ministry on the order.

''It is a basic precept of the Constitution that policy making subject to the approval of the Parliament is an exclusive prerogative of the executive,'' said the CPI (M) polit bureau.

In the same way, the party said, legislation was an ''exclusive prerogative'' of Parliament and the government's role is limited to introduction of the law and once this was done it becomes a property of the legislature.

''The parliamentary standing committee is a body set up the Parliament, enjoying its powers and exclusively accountable to the Parliament, itself and through it to the sovereign--the people of the country,'' the polit bureau said.

The courts, it said, can examine the constitutional validity of a law, ''but, in no case, can it pre-empt and influence the nature of legislation or policy''.

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