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PROJECT ON
RESERVATIONS

Supervised by Submitted by

Ms. Poonam Bishnoi Mr B K Mutha

Asst. Professor ,Faculty LL.M.(1stsemester)

University Law Department

University Law Department

University Of Rajasthan,

Jaipur December, 2019

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CERTIFICATE

Ms. Poonam Bishnoi

Asst. Professor

,Faculty

University Law Department

University Of Rajasthan,

Jaipur

This is to certify that Mr. B.K Mutha is a student of Ist Semester, has
carried out project titled “Reservations” under my supervision it is an
project report. The student has completed research work in stipulated
time and according to the norms prescribed for the purpose.

Date: Ms. Poonam Bishnoi

Place Asst. Professor ,Faculty

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I have written this project titled Reservations Under the

supervision of Ms. Poonam Bishnoi, Asst. Professor University Law
College, UOR, Jaipur.

Her valuable suggestions here in have not only helped me

immensely in making this work but also in developing an analytical
approach this work.

I’m extremely grateful to librarian and library staff of the college

for the support and co-operation extended by them from time to time.

B K Mutha (I Semester)
Roll No. 10
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Table of contents

Page No.

 Introduction 5
 Historical Background 5
 Constitutional Provisions Governing Reservations 6
 Who need reservation 7-9
 Judicial Scrutiny of Reservations 10
 Mandal Commission 11
 Debate on Parliament 12-15
 Why Reservation needed 16
 Argument Against Reservation 16
 Why reservation needed 16-17
 Suggestion 18
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Introduction

 The age-old caste system of India is responsible for the origination of the reservation system
in the country.
 In simple terms, it is about facilitating access to seats in the government jobs, educational
institutions, and even legislatures to certain sections of the population.
 These sections have faced historical injustice due to their caste identity.
 As a quota based affirmative action, the reservation can also be seen as positive
discrimination.
 In India, it is governed by government policies backed by the Indian Constitution
 Debate on whether Parliament can overrule the judiciary in the matter of
reservation

Historical Background

 William Hunter and Jyotirao Phule in 1882 originally conceived the idea of caste- based
reservation system.
 The reservation system that exists today, in its true sense, was introduced in 1933 when British
Prime-Minister Ramsay Macdonald presented the ‘Communal Award’.
 The award made provision for separate electorates for Muslims, Sikhs, Indian Christians,
Anglo-Indians, Europeans and the Dalits.
 After long negotiations, Gandhi and Ambedkar signed the ‘Poona Pact’, where it was decided
that there would be a single Hindu electorate with certain reservations in it.
 After independence, initially reservations were provided only for SCs and STs.
 OBCs were included in the ambit of reservation in 1991 on the recommendations of the
Mandal Commission.
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Constitutional Provisions Governing Reservations

 Part XVI deals with reservation of SC and ST in Central and State legislatures.
 Article 15(4) and 16(4) of the Constitution enabled the State and Central Governments to
reserve seats in government services for the members of the SC and ST.
 The Constitution was amended by the Constitution (77th Amendment) Act, 1995 and a
new clause (4A) was inserted in Article 16 to enable the government to provide reservation in
promotion.
 Later, clause (4A) was modified by the Constitution (85 th Amendment) Act, 2001 to provide
consequential seniority to SC and ST candidates promoted by giving reservation.
 Constitutional 81st Amendment Act, 2000 inserted Article 16 (4 B) which enables the state to
fill the unfilled vacancies of a year which are reserved for SCs/STs in the succeeding year,
thereby nullifying the ceiling of fifty percent reservation on total number of vacancies of
that year.
 Article 330 and 332 provides for specific representation through reservation of seats for SCs and
STs in the Parliament and in the State Legislative Assemblies respectively
 Article 243D provides reservation of seats for SCs and STs in every Panchayat.
 Article 233T provides reservation of seats for SCs and STs in every
 Municipality. Article 335 of the constitution says that the claims of STs and STs shall be taken into
consideration constituently with the maintenance of efficacy of the administration.
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Who need reservation?

The Indian Constitution recognizes three main beneficiary groups of reservation

policy: Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and a third group termed
‘Other’ Backward Classes (OBCs). This section analyses the legal construction of these
categories, the attempts at better targeting, and some other beneficiary groups recognised
in the Constitution.

Other Beneficiaries Apart from reservations for SCs, STs, and OBCs
The Constitution also permits reservations for other groups, such as women.
Another category is reservations for religious groups, but this remains constitutionally
contested. These categories are only illustrative; the State can make special provisions
for those not specifically mentioned, where there is ‘reasonable classification’.
Reservations for women and religious groups (ie, Muslims) are described below. a.
Women Article 15(3) of the Constitution permits the State to make ‘special provision’
for women (and children). The Supreme Court has interpreted this Article to allow for
all forms of affirmative action for women, including reservations. In practice, the
government has chosen to enact reservations for women in very few instances. This is
perhaps because gender is not as salient a political identity as caste is in India—despite
women numbering 48 per cent of the population. An exception to this political
disinterest despite judicial assent is the Women’s Reservation Bill, which mandates 33
per cent reservations for women in the Lok Sabha and in State legislative assemblies
(with a sub-quota for women within the SC/ST quota). The Bill has since lapsed. b.
Muslims and Other Religious Groups While reservation beneficiaries have been defined
by the government—and permitted by the courts—to be solely on the basis of caste,
reservations based solely on religion have faced judicial resistance. Reservations already
extend to some members of non-Hindu religions. For instance, several State
governments classify some Muslim sub-groups as ‘backward castes’ and as such eligible
for reservations—the argument being that caste hierarchies extend beyond Hinduism to
other religions in India. The courts have generally upheld the principle of OBC sub-
quotas for some ‘backward’ Muslim groups, though they have quashed specific policies
on technical grounds. More controversial are quotas solely based on religion. The
constitutional founders were well aware that special provisions for Muslims such as
separate electorates were precursors to the division of India. Yet, post-Independence,
some State governments have sought reservations for all Muslims. This is partly driven
by the electoral need for Muslim votes. But it is also driven by the fact that Muslims as a
whole are under-represented in government services, and have worse socio-economic
indices compared to even Scheduled Castes and Tribes (who are beneficiaries of
reservations). The courts have generally opposed these attempts at reservations for all
Muslims. The Andhra Pradesh High Court has repeatedly held them to be
unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court has not quashed this. Unlike caste-based
reservations for which there is broad political consensus religion-based reservations are
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politically disputed, with several parties— notably the BJP—opposing it. This makes it a
key political and legal debate in the years to come.

Different Central and State Lists

The second nuance is that unlike SCs/STs, Union and State governments define
OBCs differently. The Union List, to which the phrase OBCs typically refers, applies to
Union employment and education. But ‘other’ backward classes can also be defined by
the States for the purposes of reservations in State education and employment. There are
plenty of caste groups that are backward class in one State, but not in another State, nor
according to the Union government. These different lists were also drawn up at different
times. Southern States such as Tamil Nadu pushed for State backward class reservations
in their own States in the 1950s. But it was only in 1991 that reservations for ‘other
backward classes’ were implemented in Union employment. The courts have held that
these Union and State Lists are not permanent and need to be constantly revised, though
in practice this is far from the case. c. Caste as Sole Definition The third—and critical—
nuance on OBCs is the centrality of caste in defining a group as backward. The legal
situation today is that the Union and State Governments have defined ‘backward class’
solely in terms of caste. The Constitution does not mandate this, but the question to the
Court has always been whether the Constitution enables this. While the Supreme Court
has ultimately endorsed these caste-based definitions as constitutional, judicial confusion
stems from judges emphasising different criteria, sometimes even within the same
judgment. From amidst this confusion, three judicial ‘standards’ on the use of caste in
defining ‘backward classes’ have emerged. He categorises these standards as ‘relevant’,
‘sole’, or ‘dominant’. The first judicial standard, exemplified by the MR Balaji case, has
been to hold that caste could not be the sole or dominant criterion, but that caste could be
a ‘relevant’ factor in determining backwardness. This was because ‘social backwardness
is in the ultimate analysis the result of poverty to a very large extent’. This judicial
standard was more likely to invalidate reservation policies, but soon gave way to a
second judicial standard, exemplified by the NM Thomas case. The majority judgment
in this case held that caste could be used as the sole criterion to identify a backward
class. A third standard, the current one, is typified by the majority judgment in Indra
Sawhney and all five judges in Ashoka Kumar Thakur. This standard is that while caste
cannot be the sole criterion in determining backward classes, it can be used, even as the
dominant criterion. As the majority judgment in Indra Sawhney put it, ‘a caste can be
and often is a social class in India’. Since Indra Sawhney, the most important Court
judgment on reservations in India, will reappear many times in this chapter, it is perhaps
useful to lay out its structure. Nine judges heard the case, seven of whom authored
separate judgments. The majority judgment is thus not obvious, but there is generally a
divide between the six judges who held that caste could form the basis for assessing
backwardness what I term the ‘dominant’ standard and the three-judge minority which
argued that economic criteria alone should be the measure of backwardness. Jeevan
Reddy J’s judgment is generally considered. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the
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licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in
Oxford Handbooks date: 24 November 2018 judgment within the majority, and this
chapter and indeed later Supreme Court judgments relies on this judgment. The Indra
Sawhney standard, though it stresses factors other than caste, has had the effect of
permitting all caste-based definitions of backward class in government policy.

Caste as Sole Definition

The third and critical nuance on OBCs is the centrality of caste in defining a group
as backward. The legal situation today is that the Union and State Governments have
defined ‘backward class’ solely in terms of caste. The Constitution does not mandate
this, but the question to the Court has always been whether the Constitution enables this.
While the Supreme Court has ultimately endorsed these caste-based definitions as
constitutional, judicial confusion stems from judges emphasising different criteria,
sometimes even within the same judgment. From amidst this confusion, three judicial
‘standards’ on the use of caste in defining ‘backward classes’ have emerged. I categorise
these standards as ‘relevant’, ‘sole’, or ‘dominant’. The first judicial standard,
exemplified by the MR Balaji case, has been to hold that caste could not be the sole or
dominant criterion, but that caste could be a ‘relevant’ factor in determining
backwardness. This was because ‘social backwardness is in the ultimate analysis the
result of poverty to a very large extent’. This judicial standard was more likely to
invalidate reservation policies, but soon gave way to a second judicial standard,
exemplified by the NM Thomas case. The majority judgment in this case held that caste
could be used as the sole criterion to identify a backward class. A third standard, the
current one, is typified by the majority judgment in Indra Sawhney and all five judges in
Ashoka Kumar Thakur. This standard is that while caste cannot be the sole criterion in
determining backward classes, it can be used, even as the dominant criterion. As the
majority judgment in Indra Sawhney put it, ‘a caste can be and often is a social class in
India’. Since Indra Sawhney, the most important Court judgment on reservations in
India, will reappear many times in this chapter, it is perhaps useful to lay out its
structure. Nine judges heard the case, seven of whom authored separate judgments. The
majority judgment is thus not obvious, but there is generally a divide between the six
judges who held that caste could form the basis for assessing backwardness—what I
term the ‘dominant’ standard—and the three-judge minority which argued that economic
criteria alone should be the measure of backwardness. Jeevan Reddy J’s judgment is
generally considered the leading judgment within the majority, and this chapter—and
indeed later Supreme Court judgments—relies on this judgment. The Indra Sawhney
standard, though it stresses factors other than caste, has had the effect of permitting all
caste-based definitions of backward class in government policy.
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Judicial Scrutiny of Reservations

 The State of Madras v. Smt.Champakam Dorairajan (1951) case was the first
major verdict of the Supreme Court on the issue of Reservation.The case led to the
First amendment in the constitution.
 The Supreme Court in the case pointed out that while in the case of employment under
the State, Article 16(4) provides for reservations in favour of backward class of citizens,
no such provision was made in Article 15.
 Pursuant to the Supreme Court’s order in the case the Parliament amended Article 15 by
inserting Clause (4).
 In Indra Sawhney v. Union of India (1992) case the court examined the scope and
extent of Article 16(4).
 The Court has said that the creamy layer of OBCs should be excluded from the list of
beneficiaries of reservation, there should not be reservation in promotions; and total
reserved quota should not exceed 50%.
 The Parliament responded by enacting 77th Constitutional Amendment Act which
introduced Article 16(4A).
 The article confers power on the state to reserve seats in favour of SC and ST in
promotions in Public Services if the communities are not adequately represented in public
employment.
 The Supreme Court in M. Nagaraj v. Union Of India 2006 case while upholding the
constitutional validity of Art 16(4A) held that any such reservation policy in order to be
constitutionally valid shall satisfy the following three constitutional requirements:
o The SC and ST community should be socially and educationally backward
o The SC and ST communities are not adequately represented in Public
employment.
o Such reservation policy shall not affect the overall efficiency in the
administration.
 In Jarnail Singh vs Lachhmi Narain Gupta case of 2018, Supreme Court holds that
reservation in promotions does not require the state to collect quantifiable data on the
backwardness of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.
 The Court held that creamy layer exclusion extends to SC/STs and, hence the State
cannot grant reservations in promotion to SC/ST individuals who belong to the creamy
layer of their community.
 In May 2019 the Supreme Court upheld the Karnataka law that allows reservations in
promotions for SCs and STs with consequential seniority.
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Mandal Commision
 In exercise of the powers conferred by Article 340 of the Constitution, the President
appointed a backward class commission in December 1978 under the chairmanship
of B. P. Mandal.
 The commission was formed to determine the criteria for defining India’s “socially
and educationally backward classes” and to recommend steps to be taken for the
advancement of those classes.
 The Mandal Commission concluded that India’s population consisted of approximately
52 percent OBCs, therefore 27% government jobs should be reserved for them.
 The commission has developed eleven indicators of social, educational, and economic
backwardness.
 Apart from identifying backward classes among Hindus, the Commission has also
identified backward classes among non-Hindus (e.g., Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, and
Buddhists.
 It has generated an all-India other backward classes (OBC) list of 3,743 castes and a more
underprivileged “depressed backward classes” list of 2,108 castes.
 In the Indra Sawhney Case of 1992, the Supreme Court while upholding the
27 percent quota for backward classes,struck down the government notification
reserving 10% government jobs for economically backward classes among the higher
castes.
 Supreme Court in the same case also upheld the principle that the combined reservation
beneficiaries should not exceed 50 percent of India’s population.
 The concept of ‘creamy layer’ also gained currency through this judgment and
provision that reservation for backward classes should be confined to initial
appointments only and not extend to promotions.
 Recently, the Constitutional (103rd Amendment) Act of 2019 has provided 10%
reservation in government jobs and educational institutions for the “economically
backward” in the unreserved category.
 The Act amends Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution by adding clauses
empowering the government to provide reservation on the basis of economic
backwardness.
 This 10% economic reservation is over and above the 50% reservation cap.

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Debate on whether Parliament can overrule the Judiciary in the matter of

reservation

RAJEEV Dhavan, legal academic, columnist, and a senior advocate in the

Supreme Court, has been on both sides of the debate on reservation. In 1992, he
argued in the Mandal I case (Indra Sawhney vs Union of India) on behalf of the
Other Backward Classes (OBCs). He represented Ezhavas, a community in Kerala
which, according to him, does not suffer from caste disadvantage but claims to
suffer from continuing discrimination.

In 2007, in the Mandal II case (Ashoka Kumar Thakur vs Union of India),

he argued on behalf of the All India Equality Forum, one of the petitioners who
challenged the Central government’s move to introduce reservation for Scheduled
Castes, Scheduled Tribes and OBCs in admission to educational institutions, aided
and unaided.

What happened between 1992 and 2007 to warrant this change in brief?
In Reserved: How Parliament Debated Reservations, Dhavan attributes this to the
three Punjab cases in the Supreme Court between 1995 and 1999. According to
him, the cases, R.K. Sabharwal vs State of Punjab, Ajit Singh vs State of
Punjab and Ajit Singh II vs State of Punjab, had a big impact. After the judgment
was delivered in each of these cases, Parliament introduced amendments to the
Constitution to nullify the effects of the judgments that were perceived to be
against the interests of the S.Cs and the S.Ts.

Dhavan was not convinced with Parliament’s objective in changing the

basis of the verdicts in the Punjab cases. In M. Nagaraj vs Union of India, he
argued for the petitioners who challenged the validity of these amendments. Over
the years, he claims, he found that the S.Cs and the S.Ts were, willy nilly, holding
a disproportionate number of posts in technical civil services. (He does not share
any data with the readers.) The Punjab cases, according to him, disciplined this
excess. However, Dhavan adds that he was not sure if he was wrong in
recommending to the court to prune and straightjacket the quota system so that it
became more reasonable. One wonders whether the author is convinced at all
about the merits of his arguments against what he calls the S.Cs and the S.Ts’
questionable quest for a real monopoly of the civil services.

In Mandal I, Dhavan advanced the “empowerment” argument, which

touched a chord in the majority judgment of Justice Jeevan Reddy. In his 5/6

judgment, Justice Reddy not only accepted his argument but took the view that
this sentiment was echoed in the discussions of the Constituent Assembly itself.
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Dhavan identifies disempowerment as one of the three considerations to determine

backwardness of a class, the others being disadvantage and discrimination. He
explains that there was a cutting edge to the argument of disempowerment:
empowerment included both political and bureaucratic empowerment. The
empowerment argument did not appeal in Mandal II because the case pertained to
reservation in educational institutions. One is left wondering why Dhavan does not
believe that many disempowered classes see admission to educational institutions
as a passport to gain entry into the civil services.

There is another inconsistency in Dhavan’s involvement with the quota

debate. According to him, the formula of a creamy layer test should not become an
incantation. The purpose, he says, is to divide the Backward Classes into the
disadvantaged and the less or least disadvantaged. But he says the creamy layer
was not devised to skim off the least disadvantaged in that group and deny them
the benefit of reservation completely. He shares the Left parties’ perspective that
the creamy layer should get the benefits of reservation only after the claims of the
backward and more backward members of that class have been exhausted.

However, in the M. Nagaraj and Mandal II cases, Dhavan argued in favour

of excluding the creamy layer among the S.Cs and the S.Ts. It is difficult to
appreciate how Dhavan, a proponent of a less stringent test for identifying the
creamy layer among the OBCs, because it would reduce the number of
beneficiaries disproportionately, could turn around and argue against non-
exclusion of the creamy layer among the S.Cs and the S.Ts.

One is not sure if Dhavan is missing the essential distinction between the
rationale for reservation for the OBCs and for the S.Cs and the S.Ts. He
acknowledges that the S.Cs and the S.Ts constitute a “super classification” in the
Indian Constitution and that they suffer social discrimination and disadvantage. He
agrees that as a group they cannot be derecognized except by a constitutional
process.

Yet, he advances the view that the creamy layer test is an individual test and
excludes those who are success stories. He says that it is an equality test among
the S.Cs and the S.Ts to ensure that the worst off among them are not obscured by
the better off.

In the Mandal II case, the Supreme Court rightly distanced itself from the
question of applying the creamy layer test to the S.Cs and the S.Ts, because the 5/6

Constitution Bench claimed the issue was not before it. But Dhavan’s conclusion
is exactly the opposite: in Mandal II , the majority Judges (Justices Arijit Pasayat,
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C.K. Thakker, Raveendran and Dalveer Bandari) held that since the creamy layer
test went to the root of the concept of equality it applied across the board to all
backward classes, including the S.Cs and S.Ts and the OBCs.

All the Judges, except Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, according to

Dhavan, must be taken to have implicitly, if not explicitly, accepted the
application of the creamy layer test to the S.Cs and the S.Ts. This is indeed a
debatable proposition.

Constitutional Ammendments

Dhavan considers in depth the debates in Parliament before the enactment

of the five constitutional amendments dealing with reservation. The first was the
77th Amendment in 1995 inserting Article 16(4A) to provide for reservation in
promotions for the S.Cs and the S.Ts. The Indra Sawhney judgment of 1992
scheduled a five-year deadline for reservation in promotions to end. The second
was the 81st Amendment in 2000 inserting Article 16(4B) enabling the
government to carry forward unfilled reserved vacancies in public services to the
following year, and keep them beyond the 50 per cent ceiling on reserved posts
fixed by the Supreme Court in Mandal I.

The third was the 82nd Amendment in 2000, which added a proviso to
Article 335 to enable relaxation in the qualifying marks for the S.Cs and the S.Ts,
for reservation in promotion. This was necessitated by the Supreme Court’s
judgment in S.Vinod Kumar vs Union of India (1996), which held such relaxation
impermissible.

The fourth was the amendment of Article 16(4A) by the 85th Amendment
Act. By virtue of being appointed earlier to a reserved post, an employee
belonging to the S.C. or S.T. categories acquires a consequential seniority over
merit candidates in the promotional cadre.

In the Ajit Singh II case (1999), the Supreme Court, however, held that
accelerated promotion did not imply accelerated seniority. The amendment,
therefore, inserted the words, “in matters of promotion with consequential
seniority” in the clause to provide that reservation is not ruled out in such cases.

The fifth is the 93rd Constitution Amendment, made in 2005, and the
Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006. Parliament
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enacted these as an answer to the Supreme Court’s judgment in the P.A. Inamdar
case (2005), which held that reservation could not be imposed on private unaided
institutions.
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Dhavan believes that Parliament brazenly overruled the apex court

judgments while enacting the constitutional amendments. Dhavan does not explain
what distinguishes brazen overruling of a judgment from an amendment that just
seeks to change the basis of a judgment. The latter is legally acceptable, while the
former is not. Each one of these amendments has been subsequently validated by
the Supreme Court: the first four in the M. Nagaraj case and the fifth one in
Mandal II.

The Supreme Court observed in the M. Nagaraj case: “Equity, justice and
efficiency are variable factors. These factors are context-specific. There is no fixed
yardstick to identify and measure these three factors; it will depend on the facts
and circumstances of each case. These are the limitations on the mode of the
exercise of power by the State. None of these limitations have been removed by
the impugned amendments. If the concerned State fails to identify and measure
backwardness, inadequacy and overall administrative efficiency then in that event
the provision for reservation would be invalid. These amendments do not alter the
structure of Articles 14, 15 and 16 (equity code). The parameters mentioned in
Article 16(4) are retained.”

It further observed that: “It was vehemently urged on behalf of the

petitioners that the Statement of Objects and Reasons indicate that the impugned
amendments have been promulgated by Parliament to overrule the decision of this
court. We do not find any merit in this argument... The impugned constitutional
amendments are enabling in nature. They leave it to the States to provide for
reservation.”

The book refers to the judgment in the M. Nagaraj case in passing and does
not refer to these passages, which tend to weaken Dhavan’s main thesis of brazen
overruling of judgments. In Mandal II, Dhavan’s major plea that there was cursory
debate in Parliament before enacting the impugned amendment failed to impress
the court, which considered it an insufficient ground to set aside the amendment
and the Act providing for reservation in educational institutions.

All said, Dhavan must be congratulated on writing a provocative and well-

researched book on the contemporary debate on reservation.

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Why Reservation needed

 To correct the historical injustice faced by backward castes in the country.
 To provide a level playing field for backward section as they can not compete with those
who have had the access of resources and means for centuries.
 To ensure adequate representation of backward classes in the services under the State.
 For advancement of backward classes.
 To ensure equality as basis of meritocracy i.e all people must be brought to the same
level before judging them on the basis of merit.

Argument Against Reservations

 Reservation in state services led to divisions and enmity among government
employees, vitiating the atmosphere at workplace.
 Eradication, not perpetuation of caste was the objective of the reservation policy but
Caste Based Reservation only perpetuate the notion of caste in society.
 Reservation was introduced to ensure that the historically underprivileged
communities were given equal access to resources but irrespective of the economic
progress they continue to remain socially disadvantaged.
 Reservation destroys self-respect, so much so that competition is no longer on to
determine the best but the most backward.
 Reservations are the biggest enemy of meritocracy which is the foundation of many
progressive countries.
 It has became a tool to meet narrow political ends through invoking class loyalties
and primordial identities.
 The dominant and elite class within the backward castes has appropriated the
benefits of reservation and the most marginalised within the backward castes have
remained marginalised.
 Reservation has become the mechanism of exclusion rather than inclusion
as many upper caste poors are also facing discrimination and injustice which
breeds frustration in the society.

Reasons Behind Increasing Demands of Reservations

 Reservation is increasingly seen as a remedy for the adverse effects of
ill-thought out development policies.
 In developed states like Haryana, Gujarat and Maharashtra, in spite of their
economies being relatively better, three things have been worrying the
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people:
o Acute agrarian distress,
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o Stagnation in employment growth and

o Distortions in the development trajectory.
 In this backdrop, for governments, it is easier to talk of reservation than to
make a course correction.
 Increasing reservation demands among upper castes also arising from the
fear of losing privilege and the inability to cope with change
 Upper castes have begun to feel disadvantaged especially in context of
government jobs as they don’t get similar advantages like backward
classes.

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Suggestions
 The reservation benefits should flow to the vast majority of underprivileged children
from deprived castes; not to a few privileged children with a caste tag.
 High ranks officials families, high income professionals and others above a certain
income should not get the reservation benefits especially in government jobs.
 Fair and practical ways to help needy person from each community through
reservation is possible and necessary.
 The process of reservation should filter the truly economically deprived individuals
and bring them all to justice
 Revolutionary changes in the education system at the grass-roots level is need of the
hour.
 There is also need for awareness generation because while the unreserved
segments, keep on opposing the provision, the neediest sections from within the
reserved segments are hardly aware about how to get benefited from the provision or
even whether there are such provisions exists.
 The radical solutions like excluding the entire creamy layer among all castes from
reservation and developing their capabilities instead of offering them reservation for
admission to higher education or jobs on a platter.
Way Forward
 Reservation is fair, as far as it provides appropriate positive discrimination for the
benefit of the downtrodden and economically backward Sections of the society.
 But when it tends to harm the society and ensures privileges to some at the cost
of others for narrow political ends, it should be done away with, as soon as
possible.
 The communities excluded from reservations harbour animosity and prejudice
against the castes included in the reservation category.
 When more people aspire for backwardness rather than of forwardness, the country
itself stagnates.
 Meritocracy should not be polluted by injecting relaxation of entry barriers, rather than
it should be encouraged by offering financial aid to the underprivileged.
A strong political will is indispensable to find an equilibrium between justice to the backwards,
equity for the forwards and efficiency for the entire system.

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