DMK challenges 10 per cent quota for economically weaker sections

CHENNAI: Hardly a week after the President gave assent to the constitutional amendment to provide 10 per cent reservation for weaker sections belonging to general category, DMK has moved the Madras High Court challenging the quota. 

In a public interest petition, party organising secretary and Rajya Sabha member R S Bharathi submitted that the concept of reservation, being an exception to the equality clause, is only justified when it is used for uplift of communities which had suffered discrimination and oppression like OBC, SCs and STs. Economic criteria alone cannot be the basis of reservation since reservation is not a poverty alleviation scheme.

Senior counsel P Wilson said the reservation in Tamil Nadu is already at 69 per cent due to the operation of Tamil Nadu Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Reservation of Seats in Educational Institutions and of Appointments or Posts in the Services under the State) Act, 1993 which has the protection of Article 31-B and has been placed in the IXth Schedule of the Constitution.

Therefore, in Tamil Nadu, reservation cannot exceed 69 per cent and in other States, it cannot exceed 50 per cent of the total seats available since the same would then be contradictory to the principle of enshrined in Articles 14, 15(1) and 16 (1) of the Constitution.

The power to amend the Constitution, though vast, is subject to the ‘basic feature doctrine’ as propounded by the Supreme Court in Keshavnanda Bharati vs State of Kerala, (1973). The impugned amendment Act tampers with the fundamental rights and changes the basic structure of the Constitution.

An amendment to Constitution is also liable to be struck down on grounds of manifest arbitrariness and non-discrimination, both being facets of Article 14, which is now well enshrined as an “untouchable” basic feature of the Constitution, he said, and sought to declare the Amendment Act of 2019, as unconstitutional and void.

It is judicially recognised that reservations are not poverty alleviation programmes but rather are more in the nature of social justice programmes to uplift communities which have not had access to education or employment and consequently do not have representation in the services of the State. Therefore, essentially, the exception to equality clause is only available to those communities which were ostracized for centuries, the counsel said. His interim prayer is to stay operation of the reservation.

The petition is likely to come up before the third bench of Justices S Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad on January 21.