Quota case: Govt told to file reply by March 7

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday granted time till March 7 to the Centre to file its reply on the PIL challenging the government’s decision to implement 27% reservation for backward classes in elite central educational institutions.

A Bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and SH Kapadia granted the time after additional solicitor general Gopal Subramaniam, appearing for the Centre, while defending the decision sought time to file a proper reply on the petition.

The Bench, however, said it would examine on March 7, the plea of ML Lahoty, counsel for the petitioner organisation Youth for Equality, for a stay on the admission process already undertaken by the central institutes which had extended the reservations benefits.

Mr Lahoty complained that the impugned notification issued by the government on January 4 this year was arbitrary and highly discriminatory as no rational basis was adopted in extending the benefits. He further said, since 1931, not a single census had been conducted in the country to record status of OBCs.

The body has assailed the notification as being violative of the basic structure of the Constitution and infringing an individual’s fundamental rights.

In one of the recent landmark judgements, a nine-member Constitution bench of the Supreme Court had held that any law passed by the legislature was liable to be struck down as “unconstitutional” if it destroyed the basic structure theory as enunciated in the Keshavanada Bharati case.