NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday said reservation should be limited to the backward deprived of access to fruits of advancement, while leaving out the financially sound, or creamy layer, among the socially and educationally backward classes.
%u201CWhy should the financially sound among the backward benefit from reservations, which is meant for their weaker brethren,%u201D asked the two-judge bench comprising Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice L S Panta. It added that while extending the benefit of quota to a backward deprived of access to infrastructure was understandable, the creamy layer was not deprived of access to infrastructure.
Solicitor-general G E Vahanvati argued that the concept of creamy layer was applicable only to jobs, which were scarce. Besides, he added, the government had in any case ensured that the general category students were not affected by new quota regime, by increasing their seats to the pre-quota level.
%u201CIf the seats are not being curtailed, how did the law infringe the fundamental rights of any student,%u201D asked Mr Vahanvati.
The bench, not quite buying the argument, said the question was of entitlement. %u201CIf the economically forward is not entitled to the reservation benefits, can parliament still give him the benefit?...would it not violate the right to equality guaranteed under the constitution, it asked.
Arguing against the centre%u2019s application, former solicitor-general said the funding of central educational institutions was with tax-payers%u2019 money and therefore, right of equality must play an important role.
Mr Salve even went to the extent of questioning the continuation of reservation policy, alleging that nobody in power had the courage to dismantle the policy that has become a self-perpetuating regime. %u201CIt is now being demanded as a right,%u201D he said.
To add to the discomfort of the centre, advocate M L Lahoty noted that the centre knew that a huge number of creamy layer OBCs would benefit from the quota, which is why it had pleaded that if the creamy layer was excluded, the 27% seats earmarked for OBCs would not be filled up
RE:Why should well-off OBCs benefit: SC
by serial on Apr 24, 2007 08:30 AM Permalink
if census is been repeated , OBC % will fall and after creamy layer seperation OBC will come down to 10-15% only and then why 27% reservation is needed. arjun singh can never answer that,
