April 15, 2007 OBC
quota: Government ready to move apex court
New Delhi,
The central government is likely to move the Supreme Court Monday
seeking annulment of its March 29 order, which suspended the law for
27 percent reservation in higher central educational institutions
for Other Backward Classes (OBC) students.
Asked
whether the government would move the court Monday on the issue,
Solicitor General G.E. Vahanvati told IANS, "I think so."
Law ministry sources said an application for the purpose had been
drafted and vetted in line with the political consensus that emerged
in a series of meetings that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had with
leaders from the ruling alliance and the opposition last week.
Various state governments too, at a meeting of state education
ministers convened last week by Human Resource Development Minister
Arjun Singh, expressed strong support to implementing the law from
the next academic session beginning July.
They had asked the centre to seek a review of the apex court order
at the earliest.
The government too need to act expeditiously on the issue as the six
Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have set April 21 as the
deadline for announcing their final selection list for admissions in
the coming academic session.
The application seeking review of the apex court's order is to
reiterate the government's stand on the quota policy including the
need to provide for reservation to the 'creamy layer' among OBCs.
Seeking to counter the court observation that the law cannot be
implemented on the basis of the 1931 census data, the government is
to extensively utilise the apex court order on the legality of
implementation of the Mandal Commission report and reservation of 27
percent state jobs for OBCs.
The government is expected to contend before the apex court that
when the OBC candidates could be granted 27 percent reservation in
government jobs as per the Mandal Commission report that was largely
based on the 1931 census data, there is no reason why the OBC
students cannot be allocated 27 percent seats in higher educational
institutions on the basis of the same data.
The sources said Solicitor General Vahanvati and Additional
Solicitor General Gopal Subramanian would be the main law officers
presenting the government's viewpoint before the court.
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