Reservation Policies Cannot Be In Place Indefinitely, According To The Supreme Court

The majority and minority views of three judges on the Constitution Bench agreed that the policy of racial discrimination in employment and education cannot last indefinitely.

Reservation policy needs to have a time limit, according to Justice Bela M. Trivedi, who contributed to the majority ruling. After 75 years of independence, Justice Trivedi stated, “We need to reconsider the reservation system in the wider interest of the community as a whole, as a step forward towards transformational constitutionalism.”

She emphasized that 80 years after the Constitution’s inception, the quotas for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the House of the People and in State Legislative Assemblies would end. As a result of the 104th Constitutional Amendment, the representation of Anglo-Indian communities in Parliament and Assemblies has already been discontinued as of January 25, 2020.

Justice Trivedi’s opinion on ending quotas under Articles 15 and 16 would also apply to EWS reservations, despite not being stated explicitly.

As part of the majority that supported the EWS quota, Fairness P.B. Pardiwala stated that reserve is not an end but a means – a means to promote social and economic justice. It should not be permitted for reservations to develop into vested interests. The real remedy, however, rests in eradicating the factors that have contributed to the social, educational, and economic underachievement of the community’s most vulnerable members.

He said that longstanding progress and the expansion of education had significantly reduced the gap between the classes. Many members of the backward class achieve respectable levels of education and work. They ought to be taken out of the Backward categories so that assistance could be given to people who actually need it.

Justice S. Ravindra Bhat cited Baba Saheb Ambedkar’s remarks that reservations should be viewed as temporary and exceptional or else they would eat up the rule of equality in his minority opinion on the bench.

News Mania Desk