Reservations in B-Schools

“The Supreme Court of India upheld the Constitution amendment law providing for 27% quota for Other Backward Classes in IITs, IIMs & other central educational institutions, excluding the creamy layer from the benefit on Thursday. A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and comprising of Justices Arijit Pasayat, C K Thakker, R V Raveendran and Dalveer Bhandari cleared the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006 providing for the quota, by a unanimous verdict clearing the interim order of March 29, 2007 staying the implementation of the Act.

The court held that the (93rd Amendment) Act, under which the government came out with the law providing 27% quota in Centrally-aided institutions does not violate the basic structure of the Constitution and has ruled that the reservation policy can be put in place for the 2008-09 academic session. The verdict was against petitions filed by anti-quota activists challenging the Act who had vehemently opposed government's move saying caste cannot be the starting point for identifying backward classes. All judges also favoured periodic revision on the implementation of the quota while ruling that the delegation of power to the Centre to determine OBCs was valid and excluded minority institutions from the ambit of quota under the Act.

The parameter applied for identifying the creamy layer among the OBCs for jobs as per the office memorandum of September 8, 1993, will be applicable to identify the creamy layers amongst students.

Source: http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/apr/10quota.htm “