Opinion AIIMS quota order by SC lays down merit line
Parties that are criticising it as anti-quota and akin to burying social justice,and who have promised to raise the issue in the Parliament session
The Supreme Court verdict against reservation in specialty and super-specialty courses in engineering and medical colleges,including AIIMS,is generating political heat from expected quarters. Parties that are criticising it as anti-quota and akin to burying social justice,and who have promised to raise the issue in the Parliament session beginning Monday,are asking why it was delivered on the last day of the tenure of former chief justice of India Altamas Kabir.
However,in eyeing their political vote banks,the parties are choosing to ignore that what the apex court has done is clarified a law establishing that in certain cases merit alone would count.
In doing so,the five-judge Constitution Bench,led by Justice Kabir,endorsed the views expressed in 1992 by a nine-judge Constitution Bench in the Indra Sawhney case (known as the Mandal case).
Justice Jeevan Reddy,who wrote on behalf of four judges in the Mandal case,had observed there were certain services and positions where,either on account of the nature of duties or the level at which they come,merit alone should count and it may not be advisable to provide for reservations. It was however merely an obiter dicta (observation not forming part of the judgment). But with a Constitution Bench now endorsing this obiter,the proposition against reservation becomes a ratio decidendi (legal principle),binding on courts of lower,coordinate and later jurisdiction,through the doctrine of stare decisis (obligation to respect precedents).
The unanimous opinion of the five-judge Bench will now be a law settled till such time the verdict is overruled by a larger Bench. This judgment also draws its authority from a 1980 order by Justice Krishna Iyer,noting that wholesale banishment of proven ability (so as) to open up,hopefully,some Dalit talent and total sacrifice of excellence at the altar of equalisation could prove to be anti-national if made a routine rule of State Policy.
Besides,the recent verdict makes out a case in support of proportional representation instead of adequacy of the number of seats kept aside for backward classes.
Utkarsh is a special correspondent based in Delhi
utkarsh.anand@expressindia.com
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