Hearing today on validity of Tamil Nadu quota law
July 13, 2010L The Hindu
New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday the case relating to the constitutional validity of the Tamil Nadu law providing for 69 per cent reservation for Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in jobs and educational institutions.
A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Swatanter Kumar will take up for hearing a batch of petitions, including the Tamil Nadu quota law, for adjudication.
A nine-Judge Bench of the court hearing a batch of petitions in 2007 challenging the inclusion of several State legislations under the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution, including the Tamil Nadu Reservation Act enacted in 1993, (to keep them beyond judicial review) had held that there could not be blanket immunity for laws from judicial review.
The court after examining the scope and powers of Parliament to enact laws and include them in the Ninth Schedule had held that the power of judicial review could not be taken away merely by putting a law under the Ninth Schedule.
The court had held that all such laws included in the Ninth Schedule after April 24, 1973, would be tested individually on the touchstone of violation of fundamental rights or violation of the basic structure doctrine.
“These laws would be examined separately by a three-judge bench and if such laws were found to violate the fundamental rights, abridge or abrogate any of the rights or protection granted to the people, such a law or laws would be set aside by the Court,¶ the court had said.
Initially ‘Voice,’ represented by senior advocate K.M. Vijayan, questioned the validity of the quota law enacted in 1973 and its subsequent introduction in the Ninth Schedule.
It was argued that since the Supreme Court had put a cap of 50 per cent reservation in the Mandal case judgment, the total reservation should not exceed that limit.
Justifying the 69 per cent quota, the Tamil Nadu government citing historical reasons pointed out that the reservation was fixed at 68 per cent in 1981 and it was made 69 per cent in 1990.
According to the 1991 census, the percentage of SCs/STs and Backward Classes in relation to the total population of the State was 88 per cent.
The State maintained that the cap of 50 per cent quota in the Mandal case judgment would not apply to Tamil Nadu as an exception had been provided in peculiar facts and circumstances in the same judgment.
“Prescribing a rigid 50 per cent ceiling in the matter of reservations would be contrary to the very spirit of the Constitution and the objectives sought to be achieved by the Constitution,¶ it said.
