Govt must introduce law in Parliament for implementing Article 15(5): Congress

New Delhi: The Congress on Friday demanded that the government must introduce a law for implementing Article 15(5), which pertains to reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs in private educational institutions, in Parliament’s next session.

To buttress its argument, the Opposition party cited a parliamentary committee report which stated that the SC, ST, and OBC community students are underrepresented in private universities.

Addressing a joint press conference along with Adivasi Congress chief Vikrant Bhuria and party’s OBC department head Anil Jaihind, Congress’ SC Department chief Rajendra Pal Gautam said the number of private educational institutions in the country has been continuously increasing, but due to the non-implementation of reservations there and lack of money, children from SC, ST, OBC categories could not get access to them.

“Due to this, during the Congress government, a law was made, in which provision was made for reservation for SC, ST, OBC categories in private higher education institutes. But people went to court against it and in 2008, a decision came and the decision on reservation was upheld as correct,” he said.

“Then in another decision in 2011, the court upheld the decision on reservation in private educational institutions as correct. Not only that- the Supreme Court also in 2014 declared this law valid and said it was legally compliant,” he said.

Last year, a committee of Parliament held discussions with different institutions, after which it was found that in private educational institutions, only 0.89% students from Scheduled Castes, 0.53% students from Scheduled Tribes, and 11.16% students from OBC are there., he said.

Bhuria said that Babasaheb Ambedkar had stated that if social equality is to be brought about, then the right to vote and reservation should be there.

“But the people of BJP are stealing both the right to vote and reservation. This is a conspiracy, under which government educational institutions are being gradually closed first, and then the entire education system is being handed over to private hands,” he alleged.

Today, 11 years have passed, but the Modi government has not taken any step on this law made by the UPA government, he said.

Echoing similar views, Jaihind said the Congress government had made the law regarding the implementation of reservation in private educational institutions and Supreme Court had stated that this law should be implemented, but the Modi government has been “sitting on it” for 11 years.