- The Supreme Court has agreed to consider on July 30 a batch of petitions to have a Constitution Bench examine the validity of 103rd Constitutional Amendment Act.
- The Constitution (103rd Amendment) Act provides for 10% reservation in government jobs and educational institutions for the economically weaker section in the unreserved category
- The Act amends Article 15 and 16 to provide for reservation based on economic backwardness.
- However, the SC in Indira Sawhney case (1992) has upheld that a backward class cannot be determined only and exclusively with reference to economic criterion. Further, the Court had set the limit for reservations at 50%.It is only for extraordinary reasons that this percentage may be exceeded.
- The Act has been criticised on the grounds that it violates the basic Structure of the constitution as a) it completely violates the Constitutional norm that economic criterion cannot be the only basis of reservation, b) violative of the equality principle enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution as it excludes OBCs, SCs and STs from the scope of economic reservation c) breaching of 50% cap is violative of Article 14.
EWS quota: SC to hear pleas for Constitution Bench on July 30
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