SC to hear plea regarding OBC reservation on Monday

New Delhi, Sep 13 (UNI) The Supreme Court will consider on Monday an application seeking clarification of its judgement dated April 10 upholding the constitutional validity of the Centre's notification providing 27 per cent reservation to OBCs in admission to centrally-run educational institutions of advanced studies, such as IIMs, IITs and post-graduate medical sciences courses.

A five-judge Constitution bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and including Justices Arijit Pasayat, C K Thakker, R V Raveendran and Dalveer Bhandari, would take up the matter at 1400 hrs.

The applicant has prayed to the court to clarify whether graduates were entitled to the benefits of 27 per cent reservation for OBCs or not.

The application for clarification was filed when Calcutta High Court had restrained graduates from seeking admission in IIMs and post-graduate medical science courses on the ground that a majority of three judges held that a graduate belonged to the creamy layer and hence, was not entitled to the benefits of 27 per cent quota for OBCs.

The apex court had stayed the operation of the High Court order permitting graduates among OBCs to take the benefit of 27 per cent reservation.

A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, had made it clear verbally that graduates from OBC category were fully entitled to take the benefit of 27 per cent quota policy.

Justices Pasayat and Thakker, in their common judgement, had suggested that the creamy layer among OBCs should start from graduation.

Justice Bhandari, in his separate judgement, had held that a person who has become graduate should be considered forward and not backward and hence, should not be allowed to take the benefit of quota policy of the government.

The Constitution bench, while upholding the 27 per cent quota policy for OBCs, was unanimous on the exclusion of the creamy layer.

The apex court had also made it clear that as far as SCs and STs were concerned, 22.5 per cent reservation for them would continue and the upper limit for reservation would be 50 per cent as fixed by the nine-judge bench in Mandal Commission case judgement in 1992.

The petition against Calcutta High Court order dated May 14 was filed by the Union government which also prayed for transfer of petitions pending in the Calcutta and Bombay High Courts to the Supreme Court.

UNI SC SKB NS1606