'Upper caste mindset of SC': Congress leader Udit Raj questions apex court over EWS quota ruling

New Delhi: Minutes after the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the 103rd Constitution amendment providing 10 per cent reservation to economically weaker sections (EWS) in admissions and government jobs, Congress leader Udit Raj on Monday questioned the Supreme Court over the verdict and called it “casteist”.

“Not opposing EWS reservation but I challenge the upper caste mindset of SC. When it came to expand limit of 50 per cent reservation for SC/ST/OBC, they cited 50 per cent limit of Indra Sawhney judgement. Today they cited Constitution that no there’s no limit…,” he said.

In a Tweet earlier, he said the Supreme Court is “casteist” and asked if there was still a doubt about it.

“Supreme Court is casteist, still there is doubt! When it came to EWS reservation, how was it reversed that the 50% limit is not a constitutional obligation, but whenever it came to giving reservation to SC/ST/OBC, the 50% limit in the Indira Sawhney case was cited,” he wrote.

In a landmark verdict, the Supreme Court by a majority view of 3:2 upheld the validity of the law and said that the quota does not violate the basic structure of the Constitution.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice UU Lalit pronounced four separate verdicts on 40 petitions challenging the validity of the 103rd Constitution amendment promulgated by the Centre in 2019.

While Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, Bela M Trivedi and J B Pardiwala upheld the law, Justice S Ravindra Bhat along with the CJI shot down the same in their minority view.

The apex court had on 27 September reserved the verdict on the legal question of whether the EWS quota violated the basic structure of the Constitution after hearing a battery of senior lawyers, including the then Attorney General K K Venugopal and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, in a marathon hearing that had lasted for six-and-half-days.

Academician Mohan Gopal had opened the arguments in the case before the bench, on 13 September and opposed the EWS quota amendment by terming it as “deceitful and a backdoor attempt” to destroy the concept of reservation.

Tamil Nadu, represented by senior advocate Shekhar Naphade, had also opposed the EWS quota, saying the economic criteria cannot be the basis for classification and the top court will have to revisit the Indira Sawhney (Mandal) judgment if it decides to uphold this reservation.

The then attorney general and the solicitor general had vehemently defended the amendment, saying the reservation provided under it was different and had been given without disturbing the 50 per cent quota meant for the socially and economically backward classes (SEBC).

Hence, the amended provision does not violate the basic structure of the Constitution, they had said.

The top court heard as many as 40 petitions and most of the pleas, including the lead one filed by ‘Janhit Abhiyan’ in 2019, challenged the validity of the Constitution Amendment (103rd) Act 2019.

The Centre had filed some petitions seeking the transfer of pending cases, challenging the EWS quota law, from various high courts to the apex court for an authoritative pronouncement.

The bench, on 8 September, had framed three broad issues for adjudication arising from the pleas challenging the Centre’s decision to grant 10 per cent reservation to EWS in admissions and jobs.

It had said the three issues suggested by the then attorney general for the decision “broadly” covered all the aspects relating to the petitions on the constitutional validity of the decision to grant the reservation.

With inputs from agencies

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