MPs renew demand with PM for SC/ST reservation in private institutions

NEW DELHI: The recently created quota for minorities has given a fillip to the demand for reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in private educational institutions and government establishments. The 165-member Forum of SC and ST parliamentarians has taken up this demand with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The forum has urged the government to move ahead with the central legislation, which would provide reservations for SC, ST and OBCs in private or unaided institutions. Both the prime minister and human resource development minister Kapil Sibal are understood to have responded positively to the demand.

However, no clear time frame has been given. "At present, private educational institutions are not required to give reservations to students from disadvantaged sections. We have appealed to the prime minister to implement the 93 {+r}{+d} Constitution Amendment in totality," J Seelam, the forum's secretary general, said.

The 93rd Constitution amendment, which resulted in the insertion of Clause (5) in Article 15, gives the government the right to make special provisions for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for SCs/STs. It is argued that the amendment was introduced to counter the Supreme Court judgement striking down all reservations, including for SCs/STs in unaided educational institutions in the PA Inamdar case.

The HRD ministry, then headed by the late Arjun Singh, had prepared a draft legislation in 2006 to extend reservation to private institutions under the provisions of the newly-inserted Article 15 (5) of the Constitution. However, a group of ministers, which comprised Pranab Mukherjee and P Chidambaram, had called for wider consultations before taking the legislation forward.