ND: CCPA bid to tackle OBC tangle inconclusive

New Delhi, Apr 26: A bid to let India's ace management schools fill unreserved seats for 2007-08 was stymied tonight with the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs considering the issue inconclusively, sources said.

They said the meeting was expected to resume tomorrow.

The idea, sources said, was that the Indian Institutes of Management announce successful admission seekers as per intake capacity last year but defer move on reservation candidates until a possible nod from the Supreme Court next month.

These steps were suggested to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh for approval by the Cabinet Committee, it having all along been a political decision, sources said.

The measures are intended to resolve a stalemate on admitting Other Backward Class students to fill 27 per cent seats reserved for them in centrally-funded higher learning institutions.

While the current focus is on the Indian Institutes of Management, the issue involves 59 higher education institutions, including the Indian Institutes of Technology and central universities.

The government move characterised by critics as an attempt to woo OBC vote has been challenged before the land's highest court.

A two-Judge Bench stayed the implementation of the provision while it considered the Constitutional validity of the laws notified to effect reservation.

The IIM announcement scheduled for April 21 was held up for a Supreme Court hearing, which ended on Monday without lifting the stay against the reservation, and set next hearing on August 3.

An application yesterday on behalf of HRD Minister underscoring public interest was acceded to by India's Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, who has set a hearing for May 8.

The refusal on Monday by Justices Arijit Pasayat and Lokeshwar Singh Panta to vacate the stay on implementing 27 per cent reservation for OBCs evoked criticism in Tamil Nadu assembly.

Chief Minister M Karunanidhi was reported to have remarked that ''two or three persons deciding the destiny of 100 crore people'' was an injustice to democracy.

UNI