Rajasthan passes quota bill amid stir by Gujjars

Assembly also wants Centre to make amendment in the Constitution

JAIPUR: The Rajasthan assembly on Wednesday passed a bill to provide 5% reservation in government jobs and educational institutions to Gujjars and four other castes by increasing backward classes reservation from 21% to 26%, in a move that experts say will amount to contempt of Rajasthan high court.

The Rajasthan Backward Classes (Reservation of Seats in Educational Institutions in the State and of Appointments and Posts in Services under the State) (Amendment) Bill, 2019 was passed by voice vote. The new law, passed amid ongoing protests by the Gujjars, will increase quotas in the state to 54%, which is not permissible in view of the 1992 Supreme Court judgment in the Indira Sawhney case (Mandal case) prescribing a 50% ceiling.

The assembly also passed a resolution to request the Centre to include the Gujjar quota law in the ninth schedule of the Constitution that provides a protective umbrella to laws placed in it.

The ninth schedule was added to the Constitution by the First Amendment in 1951 along with Article 31-B with a view to provide a “protective umbrella” to

land reform laws to save them from being challenged in courts on the ground of violation of fundamental rights.

A nine-judge Supreme Court constitution bench in January 2007 said laws placed in the ninth schedule were open to judicial scrutiny and that such laws do not enjoy blanket protection. In the statement of objects and reasons for the bill, energy minister BD Kalla said the State Backward

Classes Commission had estimated the population of backward classes in Rajasthan to be about 52%.

Looking to the volume of the population, the percentage of reservation for the backward classes needs to be increased, he added. Kalla said a high-powered committee, headed by justice Sunil Kumar Garg, and the State Backward Classes Commission had recommended that five castes —Gujar/Gurjar; Banjara/Baldiya/Labana; Gadiya Lohar/Gadoloiya; Raika/Rebari/Debasi; and Gadariya/Gadri/Gayari – should be categorised as more backward classes.

He said that the State Backward Classes Commission had unequivocally concluded in its reports that special circumstances envisaged in the Indra Sawhney case do exist in the state and there were reasonable grounds to exceed the limit of 50% to ensure adequate representation of backward classes in admissions and appointments.

Shobhit Tiwari, who challenged the 2017 law hiking OBC reservation to 26%, said the new bill amounted to contempt of court. “I will advise my clients to move a contempt petition in the Rajasthan high court,” he said. The 2017 bill had increased the reservation for OBCs from 21% to 26% without any sub-category.

This time, the government has amended two sections of the 2017 bill to introduce a sub-category of reservation for the five communities. But the 2017 bill was struck down by the state high court on the ground that it crossed the 50% reservation limit imposed by the Supreme Court. An appeal against the high court order is pending in the Supreme Court.