EWS quota: Violation of equality, lawyers tell SC
The lawyers focused on how 5% EWS population gets 10% reservation for the forward classes
A Constitution bench of the Supreme Court hearing pleas against 10% reservation for economically weaker sections (EWS) was reminded on Wednesday of William Blake’s words: One law for the lion and ox is oppression.
On the second day of the hearing on Wednesday, senior advocate P Wilson, who is also a Rajya Sabha member, told the bench headed by Chief Justice of India Uday Umesh Lalit that Blake’s words best expressed what he wanted to say about reservations for the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes on the one hand and for the EWS on the other hand.
The bench, which is hearing a batch of 33 petitions led by one from the Janhit Abhiyan, also includes Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, S Ravindra Bhat, Bela M Trivedi and JB Pardiwala.
Senior advocate Salman Khurshid, who earlier concluded his submissions, argued that there could be many ways to address the issue of economic disadvantage instead of forcing the EWS quota.
Khurshid read out the Indian policy on reservation to assert that it is part of affirmative action and the 103rd amendment on the EWS quota does not fulfil that criterion.
Wilson argued that the amendment granting reservation to members of the upper castes violates the basic structure of the Constitution, makes a mockery of the idea of affirmative action, and also violates Article 14 on the right to equality. He insisted that the classification of EWS was neither reasonable nor valid.
He told the court that the office memorandum that was challenged in the Indira Sawhney judgment was also an EWS quota that was struck down.
He said eight issues were originally framed in the Sawhney case, one of which was to examine whether economic criteria could not constitute a separate class, but the Constitution bench hearing that case reframed the questions.
He said a replica of the amendment was introduced in Gujarat through Ordinance 1 of 2016. The Gujarat High Court, however, quashed it. Referring to the petition filed by Dayaram Verma, Wilson said it was clear that economic criteria cannot be the sole criteria for reservation. Moreover, reservations cannot exceed 50%.
Wilson said the Supreme Court in the Sawhney case had also disapproved of any group being identified on economic criteria. He referred to another Constitution bench judgment in the Ashoka Kumar case which said "non-exclusion of creamy layer and inclusion of forward classes violates equality".
On Wednesday, the lawyers focused on how 5% EWS population gets 10% reservation for the forward classes in higher education and government jobs without any empirical study or criteria to assess their financial weakness. The hearing will continue on Thursday.