The Centre on Monday contended before the Madras High Court that a recent amendment to the Constitution providing 10% reservation in jobs and higher education to ‘economically weaker sections (EWS)’ in the open competition category, was “not a communal reservation” aimed at the so called “forward castes.”

Appearing before a Division Bench of Justices S. Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad, Additional Solicitor General G. Rajagopal said the intent of the constitutional amendment was to provide reservations on the basis of economic criteria to all communities other than those already benefiting from reservations.

Tussle over terms

When the senior judge pointed out that providing reservations for people except those who were socially and educationally backward as well as those belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes would naturally refer to ‘forward caste,’ the ASG said, the right term that could be used was ‘other communities’ and not ‘forward caste.’

He also contended that what had been intended for the EWS was vertical and not horizontal reservation. However, insisting on written submissions, the judges ordered notices, returnable by February 18, to the Centre as well as the State government on a writ petition filed by DMK organising secretary R.S. Bharathi challenging the amendment.

Opposing the petition vigorously, the ASG accused the petitioner, a Rajya Sabha MP, of having filed the case with a political motive. “He is not an aggrieved party because he was part of the process through which a Bill to amend the Constitution was passed by the Lok Sabha as well as the Rajya Sabha, no matter in which way he voted,” Mr Rajagopal contended.

“His political party has personal interest and so he cannot maintain this writ petition. What they could not achieve in Parliament, they cannot achieve through a court of law. This is only a political game. They are trying to press their agenda. Having lost before one constitutional forum, can they misuse another constitutional forum?” Mr. Rajagopal contended.

Recording his strong objection to such submissions, senior counsel P. Wilson, representing the writ petitioner, said: “I thought he’ll reply to my arguments legally but he is replying politically.” The counsel said providing reservations based on economic criteria would amount to altering the basic structure of the Constitution.

Asserting that the intention of framers of the Constitution was to provide reservations to undo historic wrongs against the oppressed and backward classes, Mr Wilson said, unlike caste, which gets attached to a person by birth and remains until death, economic status of a person was a fluctuating factor.

Further, the Union Cabinet had now decided to fix family income of less than ₹8 lakh per annum to determine EWS, he said and argued that “tomorrow, the State may even say that a person owning only one Audi car will be eligible for reservations under EWS category. The amendment paves way for complete arbitrariness in fixing the economic criteria.”