A special internal quota for a single caste group was always fraught with the danger of judicial invalidity. It is therefore no surprise that Madras High Court set aside Tamil Nadu law 10.5% seats in educational institutions and jobs were earmarked for the Vanniyakula Kshatriya community and its sub-castes. The most important reason for the court is that the state assembly lacked the legislative capacity to make laws in February 2021, at a time when the Constitution’s 102nd Amendment, granting the President special power to identify backward classes, was in force. . The 105th Amendment to the Constitution, which later restored the powers of the states to identify backward classes, was deemed not relevant, as the Legislative Assembly had been deprived of such power on the date of the Act. Justices M. Duraiswami and K. Murali Shankar also ruled that identifying a caste as a separate group to form a particular quota, without any quantitative data on its backwardness relative to others, is to grant reservation on the basis of caste only. And, therefore, not permitted under the Constitution. Further, it was noted that the remaining 115 castes under the category ‘MBC and Denotified Communities’ were forced to share the remaining 9.5% (in two groups with 2.5% and 7% respectively), which is 20%. Used to be MBC/DNC. This quota used to come under the category of discrimination.
The court also rejected the comparison with the sub-quota obtained by backward class Muslims and Scheduled Caste Arundhatiar without any hindrance, observing that these two measures were backed by census data and valid recommendations. There may be some concern that the court has said that the current 69% quota classification cannot be changed without amending the state’s 1994 Reservation Protection Act, which received the President’s assent and is beyond judicial review. It was also included in the Ninth Schedule to be kept. . This legal position may also create problems for the BC (Muslim) and SC (Arundhatiyar) quotas, as these were introduced through stand-alone laws, which received only the assent of the Governor without any amendment to the 1994 Act. Had happened. It is known that behind the Vanniyar quota law was the impending movement of the then ruling AIADMK’s restive ally PMK. The government did not wait for the report of the commission appointed earlier to collect quantitative data to justify the state’s overall 69% reservation. The current DMK regime also supported the special Vanniyar quota in court, and is likely to go on appeal. The Supreme Court is asking governments to justify their reservation levels through quantitative data. Instead of looking for shortcuts to popularity, governance in all states should focus on compiling reliable data on the backwardness of sections of society and their level of representation in public services and educational opportunities.
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