Snehal Upadhyay-
The Supreme Court has refused a petition on setting a time limit for the expiry of caste-based reservations in education.
This petition was filed by Advocate Dr Subhash Vijayran who is also a renowned MBBS doctor. Vijayran argued that there should be a time limit of the expiry of the reservation of seats in education. In such a reservation a seat of a more deserving candidate is given to a less deserving candidate, which is unfair on the part of the deserving one.
According to the petitioner if the candidate is made capable to compete in the open instead, not only will he be empowered but also the nation will progress.
A division bench comprising Justices L. Nageswara Rao and S. Ravindra Bhat enlightened the petitioner that the Court is not minded and cannot entertain such petitions. Accordingly, the petitioner withdrew the petition.
The petitioner also made a comparison on how in the pre-reservation era backward caste people wanted the forward caste tag and today, in the reservation era the forward caste people fight and spill blood for the backward caste tag.
“Now, we have well off doctors, lawyers, engineers, who flaunt their backward tag to gain admissions in PG courses via reservations. Even the Institutions of National Importance (INIs) like AIIMS, NLUs, IITs, IIMs, etc. are not spared. Every year 50% of their very scarce seats are sacrificed on the altar of reservations. For how long will this continue?” the plea stated.
Citing the Apex Court’s judgement in the case of Ashok Kumar Thakur in which the majority of the Judges were in the favor of reviewing the need for continuance of caste-based reservation in educational institutions within 5 years. However, even after 13 years of the judgement being passed no such review has been done yet.
The petitioner further said that and if this review task will be left to the government, no such review will be ever done.