#SC scraps #OBC reservation for #Jat community, says #community not #backward

New Delhi: In a crucial judgement, the Supreme Court today set aside the Centre’s notification to extend reservation under other backward class (OBC) category to Jat community in nine states. The judgement, reserved on December 17, 2014, was pronounced by a bench of Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman.

Explaining the decision, the court said that caste, though a prominent factor can’t be the sole factor to decide backwardness. The apex court said that possible wrong inclusion of a caste in the OBC list in the past cannot be the basis of further wrong inclusions, while adding that inclusion of politically organized castes like Jat for reservations is not good for other backward classes.

The court also pulled up the Centre for overlooking the findings of an OBC panel that said Jat was not a backward class. The judgment was pronounced by a bench of justice Ranjan Gogoi and justice Rohinton F. Nariman.

The UPA government had announced reservation for Jats on the eve of General Elections held in May 2014. Ironically, the Narendra Modi government too had backed the UPA decision to extend OBC reservation to Jats, saying that it was not inspired by electoral considerations but a bonafide decision in public interest.

“As regards the averments that the central government with a motive to gain benefit for the ruling political parties in the forthcoming General Election issued the said notification, this fact is denied as unfounded,” the central government had said in its affidavit filed in the apex court on August 11, 2014. It is a submitted that the central government has acted bona fide and in public interest,” it had said.

Seeking the dismissal of the petition by OBC Reservation Raksha Samiti and others challenging the extension of OBC reservation to Jats in nine states, the affidavit had said: “In the present case, the advice tendered by the National Commission for Backward Classes was rejected by the Cabinet for the reason that the commission has not adequately taken into account the ground realities.”

Bureau Report