NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will decide on Wednesday whether the validity of 10% quota for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) in government jobs and admissions to educational institutions should be referred to a five-judge bench.
The court had reserved its verdict on this question on July 31 last year and the decision will be pronounced after more than a year by CJI S A Bobde, who had heard arguments along with Justices R Subhash Reddy and B R Gavai. While the Centre is opposed to referring the issue to a larger bench, nearly three dozen petitioners want the validity of EWS quota to be adjudicated by a constitution bench.
The petitioners had challenged the 103rd constitutional amendment to provide 10% EWS quota in government jobs and admissions to educational institutions on the ground that it breached the 50% ceiling on reservation put by the SC in its 1992 judgment in Indra Sawhney case (Mandal case). However, the Centre had said the 50% cap on reservation was “fallacious” and not binding and the constitutional amendment to provide quotas in jobs and education was meant to socially uplift nearly 200 million poor people.
Attorney general K K Venugopal had said Parliament had unanimously passed the EWS quota, which was not violative of the apex courts earlier verdicts on reservation. He said the SC had never ruled on a 50% cap on reservation and its verdicts allowed breaching the 50% ceiling if there were sufficient reasons to justify it. He sRead More – Source
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