[EWS Quota] Reservation is not for financial improvement, it is for social empowerment: Supreme Court [Day 6]

Reservation is a tool for social upliftment and not financial empowerment, the Supreme Court said on Thursday while hearing the pleas challenging the constitutional validity of the 103rd Constitutional Amendment which provides reservation for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) [Janhit Abhiyan vs Union of India]..A five-judge Constitution Bench of Chief Justice of India UU Lalit and Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, S Ravindra Bhat, Bela M Trivedi and JB Pardiwala said that reservation is not a tool to improvise the economic situation of individuals. "Reservation as a traditional concept is not for financial empowerment, it is for social empowerment, it not just to improvise the economic lot or status," the bench remarked. It further said that caste discrimination is something which travels from generation to generation due to birth but poverty is not the same and there is no anthropological study to show that poverty has been there in families of non-reserved category from generation to generation."Something which is temporary in nature cannot be called to be permanent. Being born in a Scheduled Caste family is a matter of stigma which travels generations," CJI Lalit observed..The top court is dealing with a batch of petitions filed by NGOs Janhit Abhiyan and Youth for Equality, among others, challenging the validity of Constitution (103rd Amendment) Act, 2019 on the ground that economic classification cannot be the sole basis for reservation.The 103rd Constitutional Amendment Act provides for reservation of 10% seats in public and private educational institutions and in public employment for “economically weaker sections” of citizens other than Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and socially and educationally backward classes of citizens.The petitioners have contended that the amendment violates the basic structure of the Constitution and breaches the overall 50 per cent ceiling of reservation as mandated by the dictum in the Indra Sawhney case.The reservation of 10% seats for EWS other than SC/ST/OBCs is arbitrary and excessive, they have stated..During the hearing on Thursday, Senior Advocate Vibha Dutta Makhija appearing for some EWS students, contended that such a reservation on account of stark poverty is a right under the penumbra of Article 21."Does the Constitution want to restrict reservation only to castes. I don't think the founding fathers would want to argue and they would want to expand it," Makhija said. .The CJI observed that for the EWS class can be given scholarships and fee concessions so that they are able to pursue studies but reservation might not be needed to tide over the economic situation. "Why grant reservation," the CJI asked. .Senior Advocate S Niranjan Reddy, appearing for the State of Andhra Pradesh, submitted that EWS do not constitute a homogeneous group and that every backward class member has individual opportunity. Justice Bhat, however, observed that opportunity cost has to be seen not at a collective level but at an individual level.Reddy further argued that EWS reservation is aimed at avoiding double benefit..Advocate Kanu Agrawal also defended the Constitutional Amendment submitting that when a single seat is removed for SC/ST, there is a seat loss to the general category as well and thus this was only an "opportunity cost."."Oppressed classes need helping hand to stand up and other is creating this exception. Question is how many more will be added like this. If government says this is a special class then there is no bar on saying that there is another class and let them keep stacking from the open category," Justice Bhat said..Justice Dinesh Maheshwari pointed out that one of the arguments by the petitioners is that there was no identification method for EWS and no guidelines.To this the Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta said that the absence of guidelines might not be enough to strike down a Constitutional amendment. ."I ask myself can absence of guidelines be enough to strike down a constitutional amendment. I pose this question to myself. It is curable, the government can come out with a commission. If without that exercise, some State implements EWS, then it may be open to challenge. 50% limit being a thumb rule is not sacrosanct; cannot be considered basic structure," the SG submitted. .[Read complete coverage of today's hearing]