SC refuses to stay T.N. law providing Vanniyar quota

SC refuses to stay T.N. law providing Vanniyar quota

Bill was passed barely an hour before model code of conduct kicked in

03/07/2021

Legal Correspondent NEW DELHI

The Supreme Court has refused to stay a Tamil Nadu law which temporarily provides 10.5% special reservation to Vanniakula Kshatriyas within the quota for the MBCs.

The Bill was tabled by the previous AIADMK government and passed in the Assembly barely an hour before the model code of conduct kicked in on February 26 for the last Assembly poll. “We are not going to stay the legislation… We have to hear the matter,” a Bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao and S. Ravindra Bhat told senior advocates S. Nagamuthu and Anita Shenoy and advocate Sriram Parakkat, for the petitioners.

The petitions were filed challenging the 69% reservation in Tamil Nadu as violative of the Supreme Court’s 1992 Indira Sawhney judgment, which fixed the quota ceiling limit at 50%.

On Mr. Nagamuthu’s insistence, the Bench tagged the petitions with others pending in the court, challenging Tamil Nadu’s reservation percentage. The petitions challenging the “exclusive” reservation for Vanniakula Kshatriyas argued that this law was “politically motivated”.

“On February 26, just one hour before the election notification, in a hurried manner, a Bill was introduced in the State Legislature,” the petitions said. The Governor assented to the Act on February 28. “It was hurriedly published in the official gazette on the same day,” they noted.

The Act stated that the internal reservation was recommended by the State Backward Classes Commission. “There was no such recommendation,” the pleas said. They referred to the Commission of Justice A. Kulasekaran, constituted in December 2020, to “identify the number of castes and tribes in Tamil Nadu and collect quantifiable data” for them and submit a report in six months. “What was the urgency to introduce the Bill without waiting for the report,” they asked.