Madras HC strikes down 10.5% Vanniyar reservation

The Madras High Court on Monday declared as “ultra vires” of the Constitution 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, within the 20 per cent quota for Most Backward Classes (MBC).

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 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.

The DMK government said it will appeal against the High Court order in the Supreme Court to ensure that the law stays.

While moving the Bill, the then Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami had said changes will be made to the law after a committee headed by Justice A Kulasekaran Commission to collect quantifiable data on castes and communities submit its report in six months.

In their order, the judges said the state has not taken a policy decision to modify the reservation after consulting the National Commission for Backward Classes as mandated by Article 338-B of the Constitution of India.

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.

“Before the introduction of Act 8 of 2021, the State has not collected any supporting materials to prove that the Vanniyar caste is not able to compete with other extremely marginalised communities. Even the report of the Chairman of the Commission has been rejected by the majority members of the said Commission and the data collected therein are unreliable,” the judges wrote.

On a perusal of the said report, it is clear that even the Chairman of the Commission has not given a finding that the Vanniyar caste people are not able to compete with other castes in the MBC/DNT, the bench noted.

The bench also observed that for considering 10.5 per cent reservation for Vanniyars under the MBC reservation, the government has not considered the caste-wise population and there is no data available with the government to invoke the enabling provision in the Constitution to provide internal reservation.

“There is nothing on record to establish that the State Government had deliberations with all the stakeholders, especially, those Communities who would be affected by the impugned Act,” they observed.

The judges declared that Tamil Nadu Special Reservation of Seats in Educational Institutions including Private Educational Institutions and appointments or posts in the services under the State within the Reservation for the Most Backward Classes and Denotified Communities Act, 2021 as “ultra vires” the provisions of the Constitution of India.

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