Amidst the political panorama of Patna, a placing blow reverberated via the corridors of energy because the Patna Excessive Court docket dismantled the Nitish Kumar administration’s choice from the previous 12 months. This choice, aimed toward elevating quotas for Dalits, backward courses, and tribals from a customary 50 to an bold 65 per cent, was met with the gavel’s resolute strike on Thursday.
A Division Bench led by Chief Justice Ok Vinod Chandran orchestrated the ruling, decreeing upon a myriad of petitions that vehemently opposed the legislative transfer initiated by the state authorities in November 2023.
The surge in quotas was purportedly grounded on an exhaustive caste survey, which purportedly unveiled a renewed estimate of the inhabitants encompassing SCs, STs, OBCs, and the extraordinarily backward courses (EBCs) residing in Bihar. On November 21 of the earlier 12 months, the Nitish Kumar administration had unleashed a barrage of gazette notifications, heralding the elevation of quotas for the underprivileged castes from 50 to 65 per cent inside state authorities employments and academic establishments.
Following our plea, asserting the amendments’ transgression upon Articles 14, 16, and 20 of the Structure, the courtroom’s deliberation lingered till March. Immediately, the scales of justice tipped in favor of the petitioners, as affirmed by Ritika Rani, one of many authorized representatives advocating on their behalf. These constitutional articles entrench the rules of equality earlier than the regulation, equal safety of the legal guidelines (Article 14), equality of alternative in employment issues for all residents (Article 16), and safeguarding sure rights in prison proceedings (Article 20).
Echoing related sentiments, Nirbhay Prashant, one other counsel for the petitioners, underscored the state authorities’s protection, tethered to the bedrock of the caste survey. “Nonetheless,” he contends, “we rebutted this assertion by citing the Supreme Court docket’s precedents within the Indra Sawhney case and the latest deliberations regarding reservations for Marathas. The Apex Court docket has unequivocally said that no state authorities can transcend the 50 per cent quota threshold,” he conveyed to PTI Video.
The state authorities’s launch of a caste survey report on October 2 of the previous 12 months ensued subsequent to the Middle’s avowal of its lack of ability to conduct a complete headcount of social teams past SCs and STs throughout the census. In response to the survey’s findings, OBCs and EBCs collectively constituted a staggering 63 per cent of the state’s populace, whereas SCs and STs amalgamated accounted for over 21 per cent.
Asserting that the Supreme Court docket’s reservation cap had already been transgressed with the implementation of 10 per cent quotas for economically weaker sections (EWS) by the Middle, mirrored in Bihar, the state authorities proceeded to amend its reservation legal guidelines. Consequently, quotas for SCs, STs, OBCs, and EBCs swelled from 50 per cent to 65 per cent. Coupled with the allocations for EWS, reserved seats throughout the state burgeoned to embody 75 per cent of the whole inhabitants.
Moreover, the state authorities implored the Middle to enshrine the amended reservation legal guidelines throughout the Structure’s Ninth Schedule, a repository of Central and state legal guidelines impervious to authorized problem. In 1992, the Supreme Court docket imposed a cap on reservations for backward courses at 50 per cent.
The reverberations of those amended quota legal guidelines resonated strongly, doubtlessly kindling the Congress’ curiosity, then in a coalition with Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) in Bihar, to pledge a nationwide caste survey upon assuming energy on the Middle. Concurrently, the BJP, now reinstated to energy within the state owing to Kumar’s political maneuver, clamored for acknowledgment, highlighting its participation in instigating the survey again in 2022 whereas a part of the ruling coalition.