Karunanidhi reacts cautiously

Chennai, Jan 11 (UNI) DMK President and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today cautiously reacted to the Supreme Court verdict that laws in the ninth schedule of the Constitution do not enjoy absolute immunity from judicial review and preferred to wait for the orders of the three-member bench on 69 per cent reservation.

''Let us wait till the orders of the three-member bench'', he said, when mediapersons sought his reaction to the landmark judgment delivered by the apex court and wanted to know what would happen to Tamil Nadu government's Act providing 69 per cent reservation included in the ninth schedule.

He said the verdict of the nine-member Bench was not the solution to the problem. ''The Supreme Court itself said in its orders that a three-member Bench will be constituted to go into the entire reservation law, review it and take a decision'', he pointed out.

''Let us wait till the bench is constituted and the entire reservation issue is reviewed,'' Mr Karunanidhi said.

In its orders, the nine-member Constitutional Bench said that ''any law put in the ninth schedule of the Constitution after April 24, 1973 does not enjoy absolute immunity against judicial review.'' The Bench comprising Chief Justice Y K Sabahrwal and Justices Ashok Bhan, Arijit Pasayat, B P Singh, S H Kapadia, C K Thakker, P K Balasubmanyan, Altamash Kabir and D K Jain also ruled that the power of making a law and adjudging its constitutional validity could not be conferred upon a single organ.

The laws made by the Parliament have to be interpreted by the judiciary and their validity must be examined by the court and not by the Parliament, the nine-member bench said.

UNI