Posted ByTechViewAccording to the majority opinion, which was expressed by one of the five judges on the Constitution Bench, reservation is “an instrument for including any class or segment so disadvantaged, as well as for including socially and educationally backward strata to the mainstream of society.”
The Constitution (One Hundred and Third Amendment) Act of 2019, which introduced a 10% reservation for the economically weaker sections (EWS) among the unreserved categories in admissions and government posts, was upheld by the Supreme Court by a 3-2 majority in a momentous decision on Monday.
According to the majority opinion, which was expressed by one of the five judges on the Constitution Bench, reservation is “an instrument for including any class or segment so disadvantaged, as well as for including socially and educationally backward strata to the mainstream of society.”
While Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, Bela M Trivedi, and J. B. Pardiwala concurred that the amendment does not violate the Constitution’s fundamental principles, Chief Justice of India U. U. Lalit, who is retiring on Tuesday, and Justice S. Ravindra Bhat disagreed, stating that the EWS quota “strikes at the heart of the equality code” and is “contradictory to the essence of equal opportunity.”
While the “economic criteria” per se were acceptable in connection to access to public goods (under Article 15), the dissenting judges believed that this was not the case for Article 16, whose objective is empowerment through community representation.
The five justices concurred that the clause grants the State the authority to enact special rules for admissions to for-profit universities.
The concepts of reservation as initially intended for a short time were also discussed by Justices Trivedi and Pardiwala, who emphasized the need to revisit and improve it in light of contemporary reality.
In order to promote an inclusive march toward the objectives of an egalitarian society while combating disparities, Justice Maheshwari remarked that reservation is a tool of affirmative action by the State. It is a tool for including all socially and educationally disadvantaged groups in society’s mainstream as well as any other group that fits the description of a weaker group due to its disadvantage. As a result, reservations based only on economic standing do not violate any basic clauses or principles of the Indian Constitution.
According to him, “excluding the classes covered by Articles 15(4), 15(5), and 16(4)”—the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC), Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Scheduled Castes (SCs), and Scheduled Tribes (STs)—from receiving the benefit of reservation as economically weaker sections “does not violate the equality code and does not in any way cause harm to” them.
The broad range of distributive justice necessitates the advancement of the lower socioeconomic groups’ educational and economic goals in order to reduce income disparities and provide them with adequate means of subsistence. to the citizens,” the speaker stated. This commitment recognizes that leaving one segment of citizens to struggle due to income disparities and a lack of basic means of subsistence may not be in the best interest of achieving universal socio-economic justice.
As more members of the underprivileged classes achieve acceptable levels of education and employment, they should be removed from the categories so that attention can be given to those classes that actually need assistance. In such cases, it is imperative to assess the processes used to identify and classify the economically disadvantaged, as well as to determine if the standards used to do so are still applicable given the circumstances of the time. Baba Saheb Ambedkar believed that societal harmony could be achieved by implementing reservation for just ten years. But it has persisted for the last seven decades. In order to develop a vested interest, reservations shouldn’t last indefinitely, he stated.