India: Supreme Court upholds 10% quota for economically weaker sections in split verdict

In a majority judgement on Monday, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the Constitution's 103rd Amendment Act 2019, which provides for 10 per cent reservations of the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) in higher education and issues of public employment amongst the general category, and observed that this did not violate essential features of the Constitution.

A five-judge Constitution bench upheld the validity of the Constitution's 103rd Amendment Act 2019 in a 3:2 split verdict — three judges passed the verdict upholding the Act, while CJI UU Lalit concurred with Justice S Ravindra Bhat and passed a dissent order.

The majority bench, which upheld the EWS amendment, comprised of Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, Bela Trivedi and JB Pardiwala.

Justice Maheshwari said:

"The EWS amendment does not violate the equality code or the essential features of the Constitution."

Justice Bela M Trivedi said that her judgment was in concurrence with that of Justice Maheshwari, and said that the "EWS quota" in the general category was valid and constitutional.

The Chief Justice of India UU Lalit said that there would be a total of four judgements that would be delivered in the matter.

"There are four judgements to be delivered on the issue relating to the constitutional validity of reservations of the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) in higher education and issues of public employment on the basis of financial conditions," Chief Justice of India UU Lalit said on Monday.

In September last week, the constitution bench comprising Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit, Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, Justice S Ravindra Bhat, Justice Bela M Trivedi and Justice JB Pardiwala, reserved the order after all the parties concluded their arguments.

The Constitution Bench was dealing with issues relating to the Constitutional validity of reservations on the basis of economic conditions. The court had begun hearing the matter on September 13, going on for seven days.

The constitutional validity of the 103rd Amendment Act, 2019 enabled the State to make reservations in higher education and matters of public employment on the basis of economic criteria alone.

The Janhit Abhiyan petition is a very important objection here.

Janhit Abhiyan's matter relates to the challenging the constitutional validity of the 103rd Amendment Act, 2019 which enabled the State to make reservations in higher education and matters of public employment on the basis of economic criteria alone.

This matter is being heard together with a case filed by the Andhra Pradesh government against the High Court's decision quashing its decision of granting reservations in education and public service for the entire Muslim population of the State in 2005.

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