Apex court encroaching on legislature’s powers: CPM

NEW DELHI: As expected, UPA parties on Tuesday came out in full force to pick holes in the Supreme Court’s directive to the Centre on the new OBC quota policy.

While they steered clear of commenting on the inconvenient aspect of the ruling — the basis for awarding 27% quota to the OBCs — a direction to submit Parliament’s standing committee report on the quota bill was used for attacking the judiciary.

“It is a basic precept of the Constitution that policy making, subject to the approval of Parliament, is an exclusive prerogative of Parliament. The standing committee is a body set up by Parliament, exclusively accountable to Parliament,” the CPM said in a statement. The party said the SC directive to place the standing committee report before it was an “encroachment on the powers of Parliament.”

In its Monday order, the Supreme Court had said that the report “should be put in a sealed cover” and placed before it. This was interpreted as asking the government to file it before the court before it is tabled in Parliament.

An angry Left said the court’s directive will not be in the interest of the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution. However, the CPM acknowledged the right of the court to examine the constitutional validity of the legislation. “But, in no case can it preempt and influence the nature of legislation or policy.”

But the party chose to remain silent on an important aspect of the verdict — questioning the rationale behind the policy. The court had said that the policy was announced without collecting full data. “You announce a policy without having full data.

It means you play the game without framing the rules,” the court had said. The NSSO, National Family Health Survey and the Parliament’s Standing Committee had given different estimates of the OBC population.