Reservation criteria: The EWS judgment and the shadow of Pandora

Source: The post is based on the article “The EWS judgment and the shadow of Pandora” published in The Hindu on 10th November 2022.  

Syllabus: GS 2 – Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Relevance: About India’s reservation criteria.

News: The Supreme Court of India has upheld the constitutional validity of granting 10% reservation to Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) of the upper castes.

What are the salient features of the 103rd constitutional amendment?

What are the Supreme Court rulings on the 103rd constitutional amendment?

How India’s affirmative action programme defined reservation criteria?

The constitution inaugurated the world’s oldest and farthest-reaching affirmative action programme. Such as guaranteeing Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes not only equality of opportunity but guaranteed outcomes, with reserved places in educational institutions, government jobs and seats in Parliament and the State Assemblies.

The addition of the OBC category — after the acceptance Mandal Commission recommendation — also did not change the basis on which reservation benefited: despite the “C” in “OBC” referring to “classes”, the OBC lists contained castes and sub-castes.

What are the Supreme Court observation on reservation criteria?

The court while upholding the validity of the 103rd constitutional amendment said that recognition of backwardness has been associated with caste in India owing to historical conditions, particularly in Hindu society.

It also held that a) Caste may be a prominent factor for ‘easy determination of backwardness. But new practices, methods and yardsticks have to be continuously evolved moving away from caste-centric definition of backwardness, b) The gates of reservation would be opened only to permit entry of the most distressed. Any other inclusions would be a serious abdication of the constitutional duty of the State, c) Social backwardness is a “distinct concept” that emerges from multiple circumstances ranging from the social and cultural, to economic, educational and even political.

Citing its own decision to recognise transgenders as a distinct community with justiciable rights, the Court congratulated itself for identifying a form of social backwardness that had nothing to do with caste or class.

Why does the present judgment is a death knell for caste as a factor in reservation criteria?

The judgment’s proverbial can be a gateway for policy-makers. From now on the historical wrongs are no longer sufficient grounds for government benefits. New methods have to be developed to identify the backwardness of a group of people.

But the court does not define the criteria to apply. One could imagine a list of differently-weighted categories, ranging from income, family situation, disability, education level, etc.