Top court relaxes 50% cap freeze on quotas
In two major orders, the Supreme Court on Tuesday virtually shed its 17-year-long rigid stance on the 50 per cent cap on reservations, and permitted states to revisit their reservation policy to “exceed” the quota limit provided they had got solid scientific data to justify the increase.
The Supreme Court had fixed the limit of reservation at 50 per cent in government jobs and educational institutions in its Mandal Commission case ruling of 1993, while there were increasing demands from state governments for a review of the limit and to allow them to increase it. There was also a demand from some states to extend it to minorities.
The court opened its “door” for a review of the reservation policy in two separate orders on Tamil Nadu and Karnataka laws passed in 1993 and 1994 fixing the quota limit at 69 and 73 per cent respectively.
While disposing of petitions against the laws of the two states, a three-member bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar held that these states could “revisit” their enactments to “exceed” reservations beyond the 50 per cent limit if they had collected “quantified” data to support the increase.
The difference in the laws of the two states was that Tamil Nadu had protected its enactment from judicial review by placing it in the Constitution’s Ninth Schedule, while the Karnataka law was stayed by the Supreme Court in 1994 itself in the absence of such protection.
Orissa is the third state to pass such a law, fixing the quota at 65 per cent, but its legislation was also stayed by the court. Orissa’s case was not before the court on Tuesday.
Under Tuesday’s orders, the Supreme Court’s interim directions will continue for one year to enable the governments of the two states to collect data to justify the increase in reservations. This means Karnataka will continue with 50 per cent quota and Tamil Nadu with 69 per cent.
The two states’ laws had been challenged in a bunch of petitions claiming that the 69 and 73 reservation quotas were fixed by them without any “quantified data” on their backward class population.
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