-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 What a shame for Democracy. SC judges once again proved that they are still uppercaste elites & The term people not includes SC ST and OBC.
Anivar http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india/03_2007/supreme-court-stays-quota-in-pvt-aided-institutions-37225.html SC says quota is 'vote bank politics', stays order CNN-IBN Posted Thursday , March 29, 2007 at 10:53 Updated Thursday , March 29, 2007 at 12:27 New Delhi: In what could be big a blow to the Government's pro-reservation stance, the Supreme Court on Thursday stayed the 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in elite educational institutions like IIMs and IITs. The Court ruled that the 1931 census could not be a determinative factor for identifying the OBCs for the purpose of providing reservation. The ruling could once again set the stage for another clash between legislature and judiciary, as this is being seen as a setback to the Government. The Bench comprising Justices Arijit and Pasayat and L S Panta ruled on the batch of petitions filed by various organisations and individuals challenging the decision as being ultra vires (unconstitutional). Various organisations had challenged the Centre's decision to implement the quota, claiming that there was no relevant data on the number of OBCs in the country. The Bench said, "We are of the view that the impugned notification and enforcing the reservation for OBCs in the educational institutions must be put on hold as the Government has failed to provide any authentic or reliable data to justify its policy of reservation. SC held that Section 6 of the Constitution was not applicable since no data on who constitutes OBCs in India has been collected in the last 76 years. "The Centre has to determine who are the socially and economically backward people of India, before the Central Educational Institutions Act can be given effect," the Bench stated. However, the Bench clarified that the benefit of reservation for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes could not be withheld. It said that the Centre could go ahead with the OBC identification process to determine the backward classes. This means that if the Government can provide the court with authentic data on who constitute the OBCs in India, then reservation may be implemented in favour of people who genuinely need it. "Reservation cannot be permanent and appear to perpetuate backwardness," the Bench observed. While saying this, however, the Apex Court reprimanded the Centre, saying that the Centre should stay away from dividing the society on caste basis and should behave in a more responsible way. It added the Government's decision to implement the quota system was full of flaws. Lawyer for United Students Forum, M L Lahoty told CNN-IBN, SC has stayed the order on the Act saying to the Centre, Dont divide the country only because of your vote bank and that 'the consequences of this quota would be very bad'." The Centre had earlier justified the decision to implement reservation saying that Parliament had power to enact laws and that if the issue of giving OBCs reservation is not addressed, then there could be law and order problems in the country. It had also maintained that general category students would not be affected by the quota, as the number of general seats has been increased proportionately. Brushing this aside, the Bench said that the OBC quota was just vote bank politics and said it was forced to take the decision against the Government as the Government did not implement the SC's last two orders. It said that a final decision would be taken only after proper documents related to OBCs were submitted. The Government had enacted the Central Educational Institutions Act last year which provided for the reservations in institutes of higher education. The hearing on the matter has been adjourned till the August 3, 2007. - -- Anivar Aravind Global Alternate Information Applications(GAIA) Peringavu.P.O Thrissur-680018 India Ph. +91 9446545336 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFGC2e8F+jWtLmEaycRArcuAJ97FU6jFOehXkYqIinZlUFsmatuIgCgpedg xaQclsURhXZivQs9dxewG+Y= =a/D5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ greenyouth mailinglist is the activist support mailinglist for kerala run by Global Alternate Information Applications (GAIA) To post to this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
