Seeking to push the UPA regime towards a head-on confrontation with the judiciary, JD(U) president Sharad Yadav today called upon the Government not to implement the Supreme Court order staying reservations for OBCs in higher education.

Yadav termed the reasoning of the SC order “unfortunate, unconstitutional and absurd.” He asked the Government to take immediate steps to ensure reservations for OBCs in the ensuing academic session. Since a nine-judge bench of the SC, according to him, had already upheld the Mandal lists of OBCs for reservations in Central jobs, the doubts expressed by the two-judge bench “should not be taken congnisance of.” “The two-judge bench cannot overrule the judgment of a nine-judge bench,” he added.

The JD(U) president appealed to the Government to convene an all-party meeting with a twin-agenda: to discuss “the recent socially negative judgments of judiciary,” and to take “concrete steps towards the formation of a national judicial commission to provide reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs in judiciary.” He said the SC, through this stay order, “has once again crossed its boundary. Now it is time for Parliament to show the judiciary its boundary.”

The JD(U), he disclosed, is in touch with all political parties fighting for weaker sections. “We would soon decide our future course of action on this order.” When asked about the BJP charge of a lack of homework by the UPA regime, Yadav said it was not so. HRD Minister Arjun Singh, in his view, was “sincerely trying” to provide reservations. However, he found fault with Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi, who had said the “court is seeing a better factual foundation for reservations.”

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