When a deep churning is going on within the political parties on the contentious issue of “caste census”, the Supreme Court’s verdict on reservation in panchayats and other local bodies could prove a handy guidance to the government as it has strongly recommended “rigorous empirical inquiry” into the exact number of OBCs in the country.
“The identification of backward classes for the purpose of reservations is an executive function and as per the mandate of Article 340, dedicated commissions need to be appointed to conduct a rigorous empirical inquiry into the nature and implications of backwardness,” a five-judge constitution bench in its recent judgement has said.
On another important aspects of reservation, the exclusion of creamy layer, the court was of the view that keeping the “better-off” from among the OBCs political activities was not “feasible” as the implications of “political reservation” were entirely different than the quota in the government jobs and education.
“The political reservation is intended to directly benefit the community as a whole, rather than just the elected representatives. It is for this reason that there cannot be an exclusion of the ‘creamy layer’ in the context of political reservation,” the court said adding such a move could rather prove to be counter-productive.
In the opinion of the court exclusion of “creamy layer” from political reservation was not feasible because “the empowerment of elected individuals is only a means for pursuing the larger end of advancing the interests of the weaker sections.” “It is quite likely that such persons may be better equipped to represent and protect the interests of their respective communities,” the bench said.