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Supreme Court upholds EWS quota in 3-2 split verdict
Context
The Supreme Court Constitution Bench has by a 3:2 majority upheld the validity of the 103rd Constitutional Amendment which introduced a 10% reservation for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) in education and public employment.
What were the major issues in front of the apex court?
There were three main issues in the case:
- Whether the 103rd Constitution Amendment is violative of the basic structure for providing reservation solely based on economic criteria.
- Whether the amendment is violative of the basic structure for excluding the poor among the SC/ST/OBC categories from EWS Quota.
- Whether the amendment is violative of the basic structure for breaching the 50% ceiling limit.
EWS quota
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Summarising the Verdict:
While Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, Bela Trivedi, and JB Pardiwala upheld the 103rd Constitution Amendment, Justice S Ravindra Bhat wrote a dissenting judgment to strike it down. Chief Justice of India Uday Umesh Lalit concurred with the minority view of Justice Bhat.
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Majority view |
Dissenting View |
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What are the existing Income based Mismatches in the Law?
- The existing income criterion of Rs8 lakh a year has already been questioned by the Court in a separate case, as it is liable to result in excessive coverage of socially advanced classes.
- Those exempted from filing I-T returns are only those with taxable income below Rs2.5 lakh, it makes no sense to extend the reservation benefits to sections earning up to Rs8 lakh.
- Also, the majority view that the 50% ceiling is applicable only to caste-based quotas and not for EWS reservations is constitutionally unsustainable.
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Impacts |
Consequences |
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Required Measures
- Including the other sections under income-based reservations: The objective of economic emancipation could have been better achieved if the income-based reservation had been thrown open to all sections of society.
- Addressing the Competitive nature in Jobs and Exams: There exists a fear that some sections may corner a large share of the reservation and had earlier been partially addressed by the ‘creamy layer’ norm for backward classes, but it also meant that the well-off among them will have to compete in open competition.
- Identification for the real beneficiary: The Government should consider both opening up the EWS quota to all communities and keeping the income criterion much lower than the ceiling.
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