EWS RESERVATION – SOCIAL ISSUE
News: Supreme Court, in a majority verdict, upholds constitutional validity of EWS quota
What's in the news?
● A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court on Monday, in a 3:2 majority decision, upheld the validity of the 103rd Constitutional Amendment which provides 10% reservation in government jobs and educational institutions to the ‘economically weaker sections of the society but excludes the ‘poorest of poor’ among Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) from its scope.
SC Verdict:
1. Majority view:
● No Violation of Basic Structure:
○ On
whether reservation on the sole basis of economic criteria violated the Basic
Structure of the Constitution, Justice Maheshwari took the expansive view that
reservation was an “instrument of
affirmative action by the state” and should not be confined to just SCs, STs,
SEBCs, and the non-creamy layer of OBCs, but also include “any class or
sections so disadvantaged as to answer the description of ‘weaker section’”.
○ The
three judges in the majority held that reservation on economic criteria alone did
not violate the Basic Structure of the Constitution.
● Legislature acting to the
needs of the people:
○ Justice
Trivedi noted that “the legislature understands and appreciates the needs of
its own people”.
2. Minority view:
● Economic deprivation not
the sole right of a particular community:
○ In
their minority view, Justice Bhat and Chief Justice Lalit held that though
quota on the basis of economic deprivation, destitution and poverty was “per se
permissible/valid” and even “constitutionally indefeasible”, the “othering” of
socially and educationally disadvantaged classes, including the SC/ST/OBC/SEBC
communities, on the ground that they already enjoy the benefits of a
pre-existing 50% reservation on the basis of their caste and class origins,
would amount to heaping injustice based
on their past disability.
● More economic deprivation
among vulnerable sections:
○ He
said such an exclusion was simply “Orwellian” as the government’s statistics
itself showed that the “bulk of the
economically deprived section of the society belonged to SC/ST/SEBC/OBC”.
○ He said the SCs make up
38% of the population, STs make up 48.4%, and OBCs constitute 13.86% of the
31.7 crore people living under the poverty line in the country.
○ Forward castes or the
unreserved category occupy only 5.85% of the Below Poverty Line (BPL)
population.
○ Justice
Bhat said the exclusion from the EWS quota based on social or identity origins
struck at the essence of the “Non-Discriminatory Rule” and destroyed the
Eqaulity Code of the Constitution.
○ It amounted to a “hostile discrimination” of the poorest members of the society, who were already socially and educationally backward and subjected to caste discrimination.
Constitutional provisions:
● The
10% EWS quota was implemented by modifying
Articles 15 and 16 of the 103rd Constitution (Amendment) Act, 2019.
● EWS
reservation was granted based on the recommendations of a commission headed by Major General (retd) S R Sinho.
● It
added Articles 15 (6) and 16 (6).
● It
is for the Economically Weaker Sections economic
reservation in jobs and admissions to educational institutes (EWS).
● It
was designed to advance the welfare of the poor who were not covered by the 50%
quota policy for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and Socially
and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC).
● It empowers both the Centre and the states to grant reservation to the economically weaker sections of the society.
Eligibility criteria:
● The
eligibility to get the EWS certificate is not only purely based on annual family income but also based on
the held property.
● The
income limit has been set by the central government for admission to central
government-owned colleges and jobs offered by the central government.
● State governments are given the authority to change the eligibility criteria and also to extend the income limit further for candidates seeking reservation under EWS category, which will be valid only in state-owned colleges and state government's jobs as deemed fit for the respective states.
Criteria for identifying EWS quota:
● Candidate's
annual family income must be less than Rs. 8 lakhs per annum.
● Their
family must not own more than 5 acres of agricultural land.
● The
residential flat area should be below 1000 sq ft.
● The
residential plot's area should be below 100 square yards if in a notified
municipality sector.
● The residential plot's area should be below 200 square yards if in a non-notified municipality sector.
Significance of EWS Reservation:
1. Empowering economically weaker sections:
● The 10% quota is progressive and could address the issues of educational and income inequality in India since the economically weaker sections of citizens have remained excluded from attending higher educational institutions and public employment due to their financial incapacity.
2. Constitutional recognition of the Economic
Backwards:
● There
are many people or classes other than backward classes who are living under hunger and poverty-stricken conditions.
● The
proposed reservation through a constitutional amendment would give
constitutional recognition to the poor from the upper castes.
3. Reduction of Caste Based Discrimination:
● It
will gradually remove the stigma associated with reservation because reservation
has historically been related with caste and most often the upper caste look
down upon those who come through the reservation.
● In Ram Singh v. Union of India (2015), SC asserted that social deficiencies may exist beyond the concept of caste (e.g. economic status/gender identity as in transgenders).
Challenges ahead:
1. Reduction within general category:
The EWS quota remains a controversy as its critics say it reduces the size of
the open category, besides breaching the 50% limit on the total reservation.
2. Arbitrariness over income limit:
The court has been intrigued by the income limit being fixed at ₹8 lakh per
year. It is the same figure for excluding the ‘creamy layer’ from OBC
reservation benefits.
3. Socio-economic backwardness:
A crucial difference is that those in the general category, to whom the EWS
quota is applicable, do not suffer from social or educational backwardness,
unlike those classified as the OBC.
4. Metropolitan criteria:
There are other questions as to whether any exercise was undertaken to derive
the exceptions such as why the flat criterion does not differentiate between
metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas.
5. OBC like criteria:
The question the court has raised is that when the OBC category is socially and
educationally backward and, therefore, has additional impediments to overcome.
6. Not based on relevant data:
In line with the Supreme Court’s known position that any reservation or norms
for exclusion should be based on relevant data.
7. Breaches reservation cap: There is a cap of 50% on reservation as ruled in the Indira Sawhney Case. The principle of balancing equality ordains reservation.
Should India need reservation?
1. Duty of the state to provide equality of status and
opportunity:
● Reservation
is one of the tools against social
oppression and injustice against certain classes.
● Otherwise
known as affirmative action,
reservation helps in uplifting backward classes.
2. Reservation is just one of the methods for social
upliftment:
● There are many other methods like providing scholarships, funds, coachings, and other welfare schemes.
3. Vote bank politics:
● Indian
Constitution allowed reservation only for socially and educationally backward
classes.
● However,
in India, it became caste-based reservation instead of class-based reservation.
4. Mandal Commission Report:
● Initially,
the reservation was intended only for SC/ST communities – that too for a period
of 10 years (1951-1961). However, it got extended ever since.
● After
the implementation of the Mandal Commission report in 1990, the scope of the
reservation was widened to include Other Backward Communities (OBCs).
5. Enjoyed only by few:
● The
benefits of the reservation were successively enjoyed only by a few communities
(or families), excluding the truly deserving ones. Even 70 years after
independence, the demand for reservation has only increased.
● Now, with the introduction of economic criteria for reservation, in addition to the caste-criteria which already existed, things have become more complicated.
WAY FORWARD:
1. Preserving the merit: We
cannot rule out the sorry state of economic backwardness hampering merit in our
country.
2. Rational criteria:
There has to be collective wisdom to define and measure the economic weakness
of certain sections of the society in order to shape the concept of economic
justice.
3. Judicial guidance:
Judicial interpretation will pave the wave forward for deciding the criterion
for EWS Quota.
4. Targeted beneficiaries:
The centre needs to resort to more rational criteria for deciding the targeted
beneficiary of this reservation system. Caste Census data can be useful in this
regard.
5. Income study:
The per capita income or GDP or the difference in purchasing power in the rural
and urban areas, should be taken into account while a single income limit was
formulated for the whole country.
Reservation is a constitutional scheme to ensure the
participation of backward classes shoulder to shoulder with all citizens in the
nation-building process. The EWS quota with
above discussed ambiguities is the subversion of the constitutional scheme for
reservation.