Creamy layer splits Moily panel

NEW DELHI: Determined to have their way on the creamy layer proposal, the pro-Arjun Singh lobby within the Veerappa Moily oversight committee has gone all out to resist any move to bring the issue onto the panel’s agenda.

The group, comprising Planning Commission member Bhalchandra Mungekar, UGC chairman SK Thorat and AICTE vice-chairman RA Yadav, have managed to stonewall attempts to include with the committee’s ambit the suggestion to keep the rich and the affluent among the backwards out of the reservation ambit.

The issue was discussed at length in a meeting of the committee held last month, but it failed to make much headway in face of the dogged resistance put up by the trio. It brought to the fore the differences within the oversight committee on an issue which has come to reflect the divisions within the Union cabinet and the country’s political class as a whole.

The argument put forth by the pro-Arjun Singh lobby is clear: the committee just doesn't have the mandate to deliberate on the issue, and hence should be kept out of the discussions altogether.

The oversight committee chairman Veerappa Moily and the remaining members of the panel, on the other hand, are said to have expressed themselves in favour of keeping the subject open-ended.

In other words, the majority view is said to be in favour of at least holding consultations on it and, perhaps, take a final call. The Supreme Court verdict ordering the removal of the creamy layer from the job-quota ambit was cited as a reference point by this section.

Mr Moily’s reflexes on the issue, government sources said, were guided by the thinking of the law ministry and, perhaps, the prime minister himself. It was discussed threadbare at the August 21 meeting of the Union cabinet, which cleared the Bill seeking to reserve 27% seats for the OBCs in the central government-funded educational institutions.

With the pro-quota hawks such as the RJD, DMK, PMK and a section of the Congress opposing the proposal to keep the creamy layer outside the quota fold, discussions on the subject went down the wire in the meeting.

An accompanying note had identified “those holding constitutional offices, practising profession of a particular kind or having a certain income level” as belonging to the creamy layer.