New Delhi: Economic criteria to ensure that the benefits of government policies reach the target group is not proscribed and a recognised basis of classification, the Supreme Court orally observed Wednesday while hearing pleas challenging the Centre's decision to grant a 10 per cent quota for the EWS category in admissions and jobs.
A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit was told by several lawyers that the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) quota on the sole criteria of the financial position of a family is unconstitutional as the grant of such a quota under the Constitution is not part of the poverty alleviation scheme.
The lawyers said the EWS quota is wholly unwarranted, arbitrary, illegal and unconstitutional and amounted to legislative judgement by the government to overrule the Indra Swahane or the Mandal verdict which had specifically held that the economic criteria cannot be the sole one to grant reservation.
While hearing the arguments, the bench also comprising justices Dinesh Maheshwari, S Ravindra Bhat, Bela M Trivedi, and J B Pardiwala, observed the government frames policies on the ground of economic criteria to ensure benefits of such policies reach out to target people... and the economic criteria is a permissible ground and forms part of a reasonable basis for classification. It is not proscribed.
At the outset, lawyer Ravi Verma Kumar, appearing for one of the petitioners, referred to the historical background of reservation and cited the apex court judgement in the case of Champakam Dorairajan that had led to the first amendment in the Constitution.
The apex court in 1951 upheld the Madras High Court verdict which had set aside a Government Order of 1927 of the Madras Presidency providing for the quota policy in state-run institutions based on the caste system.
This led the Central government to make the first amendment in the constitution saying that the state can take steps like providing for reservations.
Seeking to challenge the validity of the EWS quota, he said that it discriminates on the ground of caste and religion and hence is violative of the right to avail equal opportunities to public employment which is part of the basic structure of the Constitution.
Dr. B R Ambedkar was born as a Hindu and died as a Buddhist and even he would not have got the reservation under the EWS quota scheme because it excludes SCs, STs, and OBCs..., Kumar said.
Stressing that the quota on the economic ground alone is impermissible, he said that instead of granting jobs, the poor in the forward class be granted financial support, free hostel, and education as such a constitutional benefit is meant for those class of citizens who are oppressed and suppressed socially, educationally and financially for centuries.
He also urged the top court to take judicial note of the fact that only five per cent of the forward castes have been given a 10 per cent quota in jobs and admissions.