The Centre on Thursday asserted in the Supreme Court that reservation benefits extended to backward classes were their inherent right and not just sops given with political interests in mind as contended by anti-reservation petitioners.

Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam, arguing before a five-judge Constitution Bench, said, “Affirmative action is not, as is contended by the petitioners, a sop handed out by a benevolent State. Rather, it is the acknowledgement of the right of the Backward Classes (BCs) to be treated as equal with the rest of the society.”

“Under the Indian Constitution, affirmative action is a mandatory Constitutional obligation.” Interpreting Article 14 (equality of law), the Centre asserted that the provision not only provided an injunction against discrimination between two individuals, but also mandated that the State cannot remain silent when there are inequalities in the social and educational conditions among the different classes of citizens.

Defending Articles 15 (4) and 16(4) which provide for reservations to different segments of the society, the Additional Solicitor General said the provisions “reiterate equality as a dynamic concept, one that is capable of remedying this state of inequality”.

He said the determination of the beneficiaries under the provisions was not with respect to individuals; any such determination would be self defeating and time consuming.

“Such a determination of a class necessarily requires an awareness of social and educational backwardness in a society which is an expert function. If a unit of society is characterised by social and educational backwardness, that unit may correctly be described as a socially and educationally backward class,” Subramaniam said.