TN files review plea against SC ruling on 10% EWS quota

THE PLEA STATES THAT THE NOV 7 JUDGMENT DID NOT CONSIDER OR REFER TO THE LAW THAT RESULTED FROM THE INDRA SAWHNEY CASE

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government on Monday filed a review petition in the Supreme Court on its verdict upholding the 10% quota for the economically weaker sections (EWS).

On November 7, a five-judge constitution bench had delivered a 3:2 verdict in favour of the 103rd Constitutional Amendment Act, 2019, that provides 10% reservation in jobs and admissions to EWS — people other than Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes and whose annual family income is below ₹8 lakh.

The Tamil Nadu petition states that the November 7 judgment neither considered, nor referred to the law laid down by a larger bench of the top court in the Indra Sawhney case — also known as the ‘Mandal’ verdict.

“The Hon’ble Supreme Court never examined as to how “forward castes” benefitted under the impugned constitutional amendment can be called as “weaker sections” merely because they are economically not sound when they have already enjoyed the government jobs and acquired enough qualifications, generations after generations and their families are bestowed with “cultural capital” (communication skills, accent, books, social networks or academic accomplishments) that they inherit from their families,” the petition contended.

“It’s a fact that they have not suffered social stigma nor discriminated from society or kept away from jobs or from the mainstream,” the plea said.

In a crucial judgement a day before then Chief Justice India Uday Umesh Lalit retired, the constitution bench on November 7 held that: “The EWS quota law doesn’t violate basic structure or equality code for taking into account economic criterion.”

Justice S Ravindra Bhat was among the judges to dissent, calling the law “discriminatory and violative of basic structure”.

Monday’s plea added that some portions of the observations in the November 7 judgment overruled the ‘Mandal’ verdict. “And in fact some portions of the impugned majority opinions overrules/ rewrites the judgement in Indra Sawhney as well disregards the Judgement in NM Thomas case, and coequal bench judgment rendered in Nagaraj, Asoka Kumar Thakur cases,” the plea stated.