HC quashes law on classification of quota

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court Tuesday set aside provisions of the Haryana government’s law on classifying reservation to the ‘backward classes’ group based on the family’s gross annual income.

The contentious provision of Haryana Backward Classes (Reservation in Services and Admission in Educational Institutions) Act, 2016, first gave reservation benefits (government jobs and/or admission in educational institutions) to people with gross annual family income up to ~3 lakh, and then to those with annual income between ~3 lakh and ~6 lakh.

The order came on a petition filed by Ashu Hooda, a Rohtak resident and an MBBS aspirant who had challenged the provision. The court also set aside the merit list prepared for the admission to state’s medical colleges and ordered fresh counselling.

The court observed that the provision meant that the quota benefit was given, only to be taken away. “There is absolutely no established correlation between the socially backward and the economically deprived and thus, on the said reasoning, we are of the opinion that the impugned notification has to be held to be bad in law and deserves to be set aside,” the bench of Justice Mahesh Grover and Justice Mahabir Singh Sindhu said.

The court said that economic criteria and the well-being can be one of the indications for social uplift but can’t be the sole criterion. “Evidently, social advancement of a caste or a group would have to be identified on an empirical data and it cannot be assumed straightway that those with income above ~3 lakh would have unshackled the social backwardness; such an exclusion from within the identified backward classes cannot stand the test of constitutional requirement.”

It added that state has faltered in prescribing this criterion for the reason that it is not substantiated by any verifiable data to establish social backwardness of the classes that stand to benefit. The government had argued that the law was enacted to ensure that the benefit percolate to the truly deserving people.