Attorney General Venugopal raises three questions on EWS reservation

The constitution bench of the Supreme Court will discuss the three issues suggested by Attorney General for India (AG) KK Venugopal in the pleas challenging the constitutional validity of the 10% quota for the economically weaker sections (EWS).

A Constitution bench of Chief Justice of India UU Lalit and Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, S Ravindra Bhat, Bela M Trivedi, and JB Pardiwala said this on Thursday.

Sources indicate parties were not able to arrive at a consensus regarding the questions of law and the bench is expected to fine-tune them today.

The reservation was made by the 103rd Constitutional Amendment Act 2019.

The three issues are as follows:

1. Whether the 103rd Constitution Amendment can be said to breach the basic structure of the Constitution by permitting the State to make special provisions, including reservation, based on economic criteria?
    
2. Whether the 103rd Constitution Amendment can be said to breach the basic structure of the Constitution by permitting the State to make special provisions about admission to private unaided institutions?
    
3. Whether the 103rd Constitution Amendment can be said to breach the basic structure of the Constitution in excluding the SEBCs/OBCs/SCs/STs from the scope of EWS reservation?

In January 2019, the Parliament inserted a clause in Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution which allowed people from the EWS to avail themselves of reservations in jobs and educational institutions. The clause empowered States to give reservation in both aided/non-aided private and government educational institutions. However, minority educational institutions were exempted from such reservations. The ceiling of the reservation was 10 percent which would add to the existing other reservations.

After the reservation was implemented, a batch of petitions was filed by NGOs Janhit Abhiyan and Youth for Equality, and others, in the apex court to decide whether the grant of 10 percent reservation violated the 50 percent ceiling cap on quota and if ‘economic backwardness’ alone could be the sole criterion for granting quota in government jobs and educational institutions for those who were under general quota.

The court will start hearing the matter from September 13.