Supreme Court of India stays 27% of Other Backward Classes reservation in elite institutions

(30 Mar. 2007) : India’s Supreme Court put a hold Thursday on the centre’s decision to introduce 27% of Other Backward Classes (OBC) quota in premier institutions of the country, the Indian Institute of Technology and Indian Institute of Management. When the reservation policy was announced, it had created a stir in the country and had engulfed the entire country in a hot debate with two groups, one for the move and the other opposing the stand.

Strongly opposing the move, the anti-reservation groups had labeled the centre’s decision as a political stunt and as an attempt to use the reservation issue as a tool for vote-bank politics. Whereas the pro-reservation group felt that it was the need of the hour and reservation was required to uplift the backward classes to make infrastructural facilities more accessible to them.

While Thursday’s verdict might give the anti-reservation faction some reasons to celebrate, the fact is that the Supreme Court has not rejected the reservation law as such but it has rejected the basis or the 1931 census statistics on which the Centre had based its law. Terming the Supreme Court’s decision as appropriate, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India Commission for Education and Culture Fr Kuriala said, “Unless and until the 1931 census is updated the deserving classes among the OBC will not get benefits of the reservation law.”