Much as expected it was high drama in the Chief Justice’s courtroom today. The bench comprised of the Chief Justice, Justice Pasayat(author of the stay order), Justice Thakker, Justice Ravindran and Justice Bhandari.
The Solicitor General, Mr. Vahanavati argued that after the stay order was passed by the division bench, it had come to the knowledge of the Government that in the Tamil Nadu case, the court had allowed seats to be increased so as to accommodate the general category students while allowing the reservation to go ahead by way of an interim measure.
Mr. Harish Salve, leading the salvo on behalf on the Petitioners contended that there was no change of circumstance since the date of the stay order. He further contended that order in the TN case was on wholly different circumstances; such an order had been operating since 1996, the order was passed so as to bring the reservations below 50%, that the dispute in that case was not as to whether that reservation was permissible or not but only as to the extent and also because the law was sought to be placed in the IXth Schedule. He emphasised that since the basis of the stay order in the instant case was the lack of data, the only way the same could be vacated was if the said data was brought before the court. He ended by stating that the govt had supplied no data as to which colleges had increased the number of seats in anticipation of the implementation of the Act and that it was too late in the day to implement the Act for this academic year.
Mr. K.K. Venugopal also appearing for the Petitioners contended that it it was common knowledge that the move of the government was only aimed at consolidating its vote bank and hence the political consensus on the issue. He added that the vote bankcomprised of such sections of the OBCs who were no more backward and that the most significant benefit of the impugned legislation would go to such sections.He stressed that since the govt had not excluded the creamy layer in the Act and since the same was impermissible, and since the provision for reservation and the non-exclusion of the creamy layer could not be severed, the whole Act ought to be struck down.
Mr. Rajiv Dhawan said that he wondered as to how the govt would improve the infrastructure in such institutions of higher education overnight to accommodate the increase in seats.
Mr. Mukul Rohatgi contended that the govt was being vague while stating that 28 states/UTs have committees to look into the OBC lists. He pointed out that there were many States where there were no lists. Thus if the Act were to be implemented today, students from such States where there is no OBC list will stand discriminated vis a vis fellow students in States where there is a list. He added that the least the the govt could have done since the stay order was to ensure these lists were in place by now in all States if they wished to implement the Act. Lastly, he stated that it would not be proper to unsettle students and their position and put them in a state of uncertainty by vacating the stay and thus allowing them to pursue the course only to be divested of their seat if the govt eventually lost.
The Solicitor General in his reply contended that the Govt only wished to implement the Act wherever there had been an actual increase of seats/ infrastructure after the necessary approval under the Act. The Petitioners at this point were up in arms pointing out that there was nothing in the pleadings of the Govt to suggest that any such approvals had been granted and that there had been any actual increase of seats.
Thus the court asked the government to file an affidavit early tomorrow stating the facts and figures as to the number of institutions that had been granted approval to increase the number of seats and how it would be possible to implement the Act at this stage considering even after the approval it would take substantial amount of time to actual effect the increase in seats.
Thus the court will decide on the stay only tomorrow after perusing the affidavit of the government. The main matter will be argued thereafter.
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[...] to keep creamy layer out Posted in Uncategorized by realitycheck on the August 8th, 2007 Lex has good coverage on the ongoing hearing at the Supreme Court. Strangely enough CNN-IBN and other [...]