Petitioners against OBC quota submit issues to SC

New Delhi, May 10 (UNI) Petitioners opposing the reservation policy of the Central government seeking to implement 27 per cent reservation to OBCs in centrally- run educational institutions of higher learning today submitted the consolidated issues framed by them to justify the plea for referring the case to a constitution bench.

Some of the major issues raised by the concerned parties are as under- 1) Whether the 93rd amendment empowering the government to make special provisions for reservation in educational institutions (including private educational institutions) is violative of the basic structure of the Indian Constitution? 2) Whether the policy of providing reservations to socially, educationally and economically backward sections of society among backward castes violates the fundamental right to quality under Article 14 of the Constitution? 3) Whether caste based reservation shall threaten the integrity and unity of the country by dividing the society along caste lines? 4) Whether the concept of creamy layer propounded by a nine-judge bench of the court in the Indira Sawhney case in relation to jobs is also applicable in admissions to educational institutions like IIMs, IITs and post-graduate medical science courses? 5) Does the Union of India's manner and extent of identifying and compensating beneficiaries of special provisions perpetuate casteism? 6) Whether economic backwardness should be the sole criteria for providing reservations and whether keeping out minority institutions from the ambit of reservation amounts to violence of the principle of secularism as reservation is being provided only to the followers of one religion? 7) Whether provisions of Section 5 of the impugned act which does not exclude or make provisions for the identification and exclusion of the creamy layer from the benefits of reservation fall foul of Articles 15 and 29(2)? A bench comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat and Lokeshwar Singh Panta had reserved the judgement yesterday on the issue of referring the matter to a five-judge constitution bench on the ground that the petitions raised important questions of law as well as public importance.

Hopes of OBC candidates getting admissions to elite educational institutions on the basis of 27 per cent reservation from the current academic session have virtually evaporated as there is no chance of the stay granted by the apex court earlier being vacated in the near future.

UNI