New Delhi, 27 Sep: The decision to grant 10 per cent EWS quota in admissions will not impact the availability of seats for the general and reserved categories as 2,13,766 additional seats will be added to those already existing in higher educational institutions, the Centre Tuesday told the Supreme Court while defending the 103rd constitution amendment.
\nA five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice U U Lalit, which reserved its verdict on pleas challenging 10 per cent reservation for the economically weaker sections (EWS) in admissions and government jobs, was informed by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta the government has provided Rs 4,315 crore to central higher educational institutions to create additional infrastructure to meet the demand for raising the seats.
\nAt the fag end of the hearing, the bench asked the law officer to provide data about the number of scholarships available to those pursuing professional courses.
\n\u201cWhat are the kinds of scholarships you give for medical, engineering and other professional courses? The poorest of the poor in all categories\u2026,\u201d it asked.
\nThe law officer, who was advancing his rejoinder submissions on the 7th day of the hearing which commenced on September 13, said such figures will be needed for Parliament to take action and these issues would not impact the constitutionality of the amendment.
\nOn the other hand, academician Mohan Gopal, senior lawyers including Ravi Verma Kumar, P Wilson, Meenakshi Arora, Sanjay Parikh, and K S Chauhan and advocate Shadan Farasat urged the bench, which also comprised Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, S Ravindra Bhat, Bela M Trivedi, and J B Pardiwala, to strike down the constitutional amendment.
\nMost of the lawyers opposed to the EWS quota contended the amended law excluded the poor belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and defeated the creamy layer concept.
\nThe solicitor general said the central government, as a sovereign, had responded to the wishes and aspirations of the poor people.
\n\u201cIt is submitted that contemporaneously with the constitutional amendment a decision was taken, in order to ensure that the seats available to the reserved category and the open category are not impacted in absolute numbers.
\n\u201cThe Department of Higher Education issued orders on January 17.01.2019 to all the Central Educational Institutions to increase the intake in all branches of study to provide for 10 per cent reservations for Economically Weaker Sections, while protecting the proportionate reservations for Scheduled Castes\/ Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes and also not reducing the seat availability in the General category (in absolute numbers) in the year 2018-19,\u201d he said.
\nThe law officer said as per the calculations, in order to provide the EWS quota, without adversely impacting the proportionate existing reservations and not reducing the seat availability for the general category in absolute numbers as compared to the admissions made in 2018-19, the total increase in intake has to be raised by approximately 25 per cent.
\n\u201cA total of 2,14,766 additional seats were approved to be created in the central educational institutions; and an expenditure of Rs 4,315.15 crore was approved to be incurred to improve the infrastructure in the higher educational institutions,\u201d he said. Mehta said Attorney General K K Venugopal would be also filing a separate short note in the case.
\nAt the outset, senior advocate Ravi Varma Kumar commenced the rejoinder arguments and again referred to the exclusion of SCs and STs and OBCs on the ground of their caste and said the EWS quota \u201cdestroyed the equality code\u201d.
\nHe assailed the submissions of the two top government law officers that SCs, STs and OBCs are a homogenous group.
\nKumar also opposed the submission that the EWS quota was justified as it has been accepted in the case of Right to Education (RTE) in admissions to schools, saying RTE never excluded backward classes from its ambit.
\nOn the other hand, lawyer V K Biju favoured the EWS quota, saying SCs, STs and OBCs are all different compartments and asked as to why a poor \u201crickshaw puller brahmin\u201d should not get the reservation.
\nSenior advocate Gopal Sankaranayanan assailed the submission that only forward class poor will get the reservation, saying people belonging to Muslim, Sikh and Christian faiths will also benefit from the scheme.
\nThe top court heard as many as 40 petitions and most of the pleas, including the lead one filed by \u2018Janhit Abhiyan\u2019 in 2019, challenged the validity of the Constitution Amendment (103rd) Act 2019.
\nThe Central government had filed some petitions seeking transfer of pending cases, challenging the EWS quota law, from various high courts to the apex court for an authoritative pronouncement.
\nThe bench had on September 8 framed three broad issues for adjudication arising from the pleas challenging the Centre\u2019s decision to grant 10 per cent reservation to EWS in admissions and government jobs.
\n\u201cWhether the 103rd Constitution amendment Act 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,\u201d read the first issue framed.
\nThe second legal question was whether the constitutional amendment could be said to breach the basic structure by permitting the state to make special provisions concerning admissions to private unaided institutions.
\n\u201cWhether 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,\u201d the third issue, to be adjudicated upon by the bench, read. (PTI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi, 27 Sep: The decision to grant 10 per cent EWS quota in admissions will not impact the availability of seats for the general and reserved categories as 2,13,766 additional seats will be added to those already existing in higher educational institutions, the Centre Tuesday told the Supreme Court while defending the 103rd constitution […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-201593","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-national"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}