SC refuses to vacate stay on OBC quota

New Delhi, Aug 8: In a major setback to the Centre, the Supreme Court today refused to vacate the stay on the implementation of OBC quota in central educational institutions for the current academic year.

A five-judge constitution bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, Justices Arijit Pasayat, C K Thakker, R V Raveendran and Dalveer Bhandari dismissed the application of the Centre seeking modification of the order of the two-judge bench, dated March 29, 2007, staying the government notification for a year.

The court said, ''We have perused the material placed on record by you (the Centre), and we are not inclined to pass any order on your application.'' Solicitor General G E Vahanvati had earlier contended that the impugned interim order created problems for a large segment of the Indian population and the stay granted by the two-judge bench should be vacated as the policy of providing 27.5 per cent reservation to OBCs in admission to educational institutions was in conformity with the government's policy of social justice and the general category students would not be adversely affected as the government was going to increase the number of seats in those institutions to accommodate OBCs.

The counsel for the petitioner opposing the reservation, however, contended that there was nothing new in the application and the government has not been able to identify till date even the beneficiaries of the quota policy. The caste-based reservation would divide the country along the caste lines and ''heavens will not fall if the policy is made to wait for one year as we have already waited for over 55 years''.

The apex court in its earlier order had stayed the notification on the grounds that any authentic and reliable data of the total population of OBCs in the country was not available and the government should carry out the excercise of identifying OBCs and place it before the court for consideration.

The present government policy is based on the Mandal Commission report which itself was based on the 1931 caste-based census and the same cannot be accepted as reliable as it is more than 75 years old.

The Supreme Court is now hearing the main petition challenging the government policy.

A bill for providing reservation to OBCs was unanimously passed by both Houses of Parliament and the Central Educational Institutions (reservation in admissions) Act, 2006 was notified in January this year.

UNI