Mixed reaction to EWS quota verdict

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: People in the city give a mixed reaction to the Supreme Court’s verdict upholding Centre's 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections. A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court has upheld the validity of the 103rd Amendment to the Constitution, which provides 10 per cent reservation for economically backward classes in admissions in educational institutions and government jobs.

The court said the quota does not violate the basic structure of the Constitution. The bench consisted of Chief Justice of India (CJI) U U Lalit and Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, S Ravindra Bhat, Bela M Trivedi, and J B Pardiwala delivered the judgment. Of the five judgments delivered, Justice Ravindra Bhat and CJI Lalit gave dissenting judgments.

Justice Pardiwala said, “The ones who have moved ahead should be removed from backward classes, so that the ones in need can be helped. Reservation should not continue for an indefinite time that it becomes a vested interest.”

On the other hand, Justice Bhat said the exclusionary clause operates in an utterly arbitrary manner as the exclusion operates against the socially disadvantaged classes and castes, absolutely, by confining them within their allocated reservation quotas. While some people in the city have welcomed the judgment, others feel that the judgment is casteist in nature.

“There is a need to scrap caste-based reservation completely and just have an EWS quota. This will serve the purpose of helping people who actually need it. Initially, the caste-based reservation was introduced for 10 years, but it’s been more than 75 years and it still exists.

There are many backwards-class people who are far more financially capable, but they still enjoy the benefits of reservation,” said Ashutosh, a political science student, who claims that he didn’t get admission in a central university because of ‘unjust’ reservation.

Others also say that many general-category people even after having merit often don’t make it to big colleges or jobs because of caste-based reservation.

“SC, ST and OBC already got to enjoy the benefits of reservation for so many years. There are people who didn’t have merit but still got government jobs while their peers who were in the general category and scored the same didn’t get in.

The whole point of reserving a seat is that everyone gets an equal opportunity,” said S. Murthy, a bank employee. While others say that this is a move to attract the upper caste vote bank and that the EWS reservation will only help the dominant caste groups.

“EWS is a fraud. We should call it upper caste quota and not EWS. This is just to please the Brahmins and make sure that they get into high posts,” said Sidharaju, an activist.