New Delhi (The Hawk): While upholding the constitutional validity of the 103rd Constitution Amendment providing 10% reservation to members of economically weaker sections (EWS) in admissions and government jobs, two Supreme Court judges made some significant remarks on revisiting the system of reservation in the larger interest of the society, noting that it should not be allowed to become a vested interest.
Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, S. Ravindra Bhat, Bela M. Trivedi, and J.B. Singh made up the five-judge panel under the leadership of Chief Justice U.U. Lalit. Pardiwala supported the EWS reservation in admissions and government posts by a 3:2 majority. While upholding the EWS quota, Justices Trivedi and Pardiwala made comments on reservations in their respective rulings.
The reservation system in India was established to address the historical injustice experienced by members of the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and other backward classes, as well as to give them a level playing field on which to compete with members of the forward classes, according to Justice Trivedi. This cannot be disputed, he added.
In a separate ruling, she stated, "However, at the conclusion of seventy-five years of our independence, we need to rethink the system of reservation in the wider interest of the society as a whole, as a step forward towards transformational constitutionalism.
Reservation, according to Justice Pardiwala, is a tool to achieve social and economic justice and not its own aim in itself. The actual remedy, he continued, rests in eradicating the factors that have contributed to the social, educational, and economic backwardness of the community's poorer members, not in allowing reservation to become a vested interest.
In a separate ruling, he stated that "this exercise of eliminating the causes started immediately after the Independence, i.e., almost seven decades ago, and it still continues... As larger percentages of members of the backward class achieve acceptable standards of education and employment, they should be removed from the backward categories so that the attention can be paid toward those classes which genuinely need help.
The criteria selected or implemented for the categorization of backward classes must be evaluated in light of current circumstances, he continued, as well as the methods of identification and determination of backward classes.
Baba Saheb Ambedkar believed that by instituting reservation for just ten years, societal harmony could be brought about. But it has persisted for longer than seven decades. In order for reservation to become a vested interest, it shouldn't last indefinitely, according to Justice Pardiwala.
"What was intended by the Constitution's framers, what the Constitution Bench proposed in 1985, and what was sought to be accomplished on the completion of fifty years since the Constitution's advent—that is, that the policy of reservation must have a time span—has still not been achieved even to this day, that is, until the completion of seventy-five years of our Independence," Justice Trivedi said.
Can we not work for the egalitarian, caste- and class-free society that our Constitution's creators envisioned? she continued. It is a challenging but attainable goal. The lives of citizens in particular and civilizations in general are continuously shaped by our Constitution, which she described as a living, organic constitution.
According to Justice Pardiwala, the new economic criteria for affirmative action provided by the challenged amendment may significantly contribute to the elimination of caste-based reservation and may even be seen as a first step in that direction.
(Inputs from Agencies)