Court approval must for quota change, says Law Dept

Bengaluru: The Karnataka Law Department has told the state government that any move to increase reservations based on the Social & Educational Survey (caste census) will need permission of the court, according to a legal opinion placed before the Cabinet recently.

“In the affidavit filed before the high court and the Supreme Court, the government has agreed that it won’t alter the percentage of reservations or the composition of communities without the court’s permission,” the Law Department said.

“The department feels such a decision should be court-approved,” the department added.

This legal point may potentially come in the way of hiking the reservations for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) from 32 per cent to 51 per cent -- one of the key recommendations of the report submitted by the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes to the government.

The Cabinet note referred to the case of Ghulam Rasool vs the State of Karnataka, where the petitioner had challenged the decision of the previous Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government to scrap the 4 per cent reservation provided to Muslims and redistribute it to Vokkaligas (2 per cent) and Lingayats (2 per cent).

The note pointed out that Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had argued on April 25, 2023, that there would be no change in the existing 32 per cent reservation for OBCs based on a 2002 Government Order. However, even after 2 years of coming to power, the Congress government has not yet withdrawn the decision of the Bommai-led government.

“The case related to scrapping the 4 per cent reservation for Muslims is pending before the Supreme Court, where the government has told the SC that it will abide by the 2002 order. Therefore, any decision to alter the reservation matrix will not stand the test of law unless the previous order is withdrawn,” C S Dwarkanath, former Backward Classes Commission Chairman, said.

‘Data needed to hike reservation’

In its arguments before the Cabinet, the Backward Classes Welfare Department cited an SC ruling from 2010 to point out that any state seeking to increase the reservation beyond 50 per cent will have to base the decision on quantifiable data. It also pointed out that the Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand governments had increased reservation to 69 per cent and 77 per cent, respectively.