Tamil Nadu government on Wednesday asserted that it will appeal in the Supreme Court against the order by the Madras High Court declaring as “unconstitutional” law providing 10.5 per cent reservation to Vanniyars within the 20 per cent quota for Most Backward Classes (MBC).
“We will go to the Supreme Court appealing against the High Court order,” Higher Education Minister K Ponmudy told reporters. He said the government will go by the Supreme Court verdict on this case with respect to admission in colleges.
The Madras High on Monday passed the order, as “ultra vires” of the Constitution, on a law passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly providing 10.5 per cent reservation to Vanniyars, a dominant community spread across the northern part of the state.
A bill to this effect was rushed through on the penultimate day of the last session of the 15th Assembly by the then AIADMK government, hours before the date for assembly elections was announced. The DMK regime, which took over in May, gave effect to the law by passing a GO that said the 10.5 per cent reservation will come into effect in admissions from the 2021-2022 academic year.
A division bench of Justices M Duraiswamy and K Murali Shankar had on Monday declared the law as “unconstitutional” while delivering the verdict on a batch of petitions that challenged the exclusive reservation for Vanniyars. The bill was first passed by the AIADMK eyeing Vanniyar votes and the DMK, which opposed the manner in which the law was passed, issued the GO keeping in mind its vote bank.
They said when there was no consensus in giving a recommendation to the Government for giving a 10.5 per cent reservation for Vanniyars, the letter given by the Chairman of the Tamil Nadu Backward Classes Commission alone is not sufficient to provide internal reservation.
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