Sir,
Now that Parliament has passed the Constitution amendment bill providing for a new 10 per cent quota for the “economically backward” among those outside other quotas, what is likely to be its fall out? Evidently, a Pandora’s Box of new quota demands is set to be opened. This is because the Government’s move will see the 50 per cent limit set for quotas by the Supreme Court being breached. And, once this happens it will literally be free-for-all in the great quota race.
Expectedly, 10 per cent economic quota Bill has been challenged in Supreme Court, just 24 hours after it was swiftly piloted through both houses of Parliament. The petition filed by Youth for Utility, contended that the Bill violates the basic features of the Constitution and contradicts several Supreme Court judgments protecting the fundamental rights.
The 50 per cent cap put down by the Supreme Court is already too high. Raising this any more will grievously injure meritocracy as well. For those very reasons B R Ambedkar, chief architect of the Constitution, was against expansive quotas. In his Constitution Assembly speech on November 30, 1948, he has explicitly stated that reservation should be for minority of seats and only for backwards classes who did not have representation in the state. Instead of this self-limiting concept, quotas have continued to expand over the decade, driven by the force of vote bank politics.
Harihar Swarup
on e-mail
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