Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan has constituted a five-judge constitution bench for hearing the batch of petitions challenging the validity of government notification providing 27% reservation to OBCs in admission to centrally-run educational institutions of advanced studies.

The bench will be headed by the Chief Justice himself. Other judges on the bench are Justices Arijit Pasayat, C K Thakker, R V Raveendran and Dalveer Bhandari.

Justice Pasayat was the presiding judge of the two-judge bench of the Supreme Court which had stayed the operation of the impugned notification on March 29 this year.

The apex court will first of all hear on August 7 the application of the Central government, seeking vacation of the above stay.

Both Houses of Parliament had unanimously passed the Bill providing reservation for OBCs in educational institutions on the basis of caste.

The anti-reservationists are opposing the caste-based reservations on the ground that such quota will not only divide the Indian society along caste lines, but will also adversely affect the efficiency of the administration.

OBC oppressed
The Union government is of the view that since the OBCs have been oppressed for centuries on the basis of their caste.

The Union government has said that the OBC community have become socially, educationally and economically backward, and therefore, they deserve some kind of concessions in the form of affirmative government action.

The aim of the scheme is to bring the OBCs at par with others in the mainstream Indian society and to   placed them at the same level with economically secured sections of the society, the government said.

The Central government is seeking vacation of the interim stay on the grounds that general category students shall not be prejudiced as the government is increasing the seats to implement the policy of 27% reservation for OBCs.

The Mandal Commission Report, which is based on the data of 1931 caste-based census, held that the total population of OBCs is 52% of the total population.

Census not accepted
The Supreme Court, however, did not accept the 75-year-old census as authentic and directed the Central government to place on record latest caste-based data of Indian population to prove that the OBCs are more than 27% of the total population of the country.

The Centre had planned to introduce the reservation policy from the academic session 2007-08.

Note of caution
Think twice before granting bail: SC

New Delhi, uni: The Supreme Court has directed that a court must give reasons while granting bail, particularly where an accused is facing allegations, of involvement in a serious offense.

A bench comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat and D K Jain while setting aside the judgement of Rajasthan High Court in granting bail to an accused in a murder case observed that “even on a cursory perusal, the High Court’s order shows complete non-application of mind.

“Though detailed examination of the evidence and elaborate documentation of merit of the case is to be avoided by the court while passing the orders on bail applications, its dealing with the bail application should be satisfied as to whether there is prima facie case, but exhaustive exploration of the merit of the case is not necessary,’’ the apex court said.

The Supreme Court further stated the court dealing with the bail application is required to exercise its discretion in a judicious manner.

“There is a need to indicate in the order reasons for prima facie concluding why bail was being granted particularly where an accused was charged of having committed a serious offense,” the apex court added.

The apex court directed accused Nasib Singh to surrender immediately and directed the High Court not to consider the bail application till he surrenders.

The accused hired two contract killers for killing the brother of the appellant Deepak Singhchi who had challenged the High Court’s order granting bail to the accused whose bail application was rejected by the sessions court.

The Supreme Court in its judgement dated August 3 also noted while granting bail the court must consider first the nature of accusation and severity of punishment in case of conviction and the nature of supporting evidence.

Then it must keep in mind reasonable apprehension of tampering with the witness or apprehension of threat to the complainant.