Reservation is not a fundamental right: Supreme Court

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="715"] Supreme court of india (file photo)[/caption]

The Supreme Court has said that the right to reservation is not a fundamental right, hence no one can claim the right to reservation on this basis. A three-judge bench headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao made the remarks on Thursday during the hearing of various petitions related to the claim of OBC reservation for admission to vacant seats in medical courses.

The bench also had Justice Krishna Murari and Justice S. Ravindra Bhatt. These petitions were filed on behalf of almost all the political parties of Tamil Nadu and some others. The judges also expressed surprise at the solidarity of all parties on the OBC reservation issue. Political parties had requested that the counseling issued for admission to the postgraduate medical and postgraduate courses through NEET should be immediately banned, as the vacant seats of the quota of Tamil Nadu in the All India seats of these courses,the OBC 50 percent reservation has not been given.

Except government colleges, this reservation should be available in other colleges. The Tamil Nadu government law is being violated in counseling. Hence the court should intervene. The petitions had stated that the total reservation quota of Scheduled Castes,Tribes and Backward Classes in Tamil Nadu is 69 per cent and about half of it belongs to Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

Tamil Nadu has assembly elections next year and the role of backward is very important in the politics of the state. Perhaps this is why the ruling Anna DMK and the opposition DMK, not only the Congress, CPI, CPI (M) but Vaiko also filed petitions. When the petitioners referred Tamil Nadu law to the Supreme Court, the judges said that since reservation is not a fundamental right, no petition under Article 32 of the Constitution can be accepted.

Therefore, the court will not interfere with the admission process for the 2020-21 season. The bench granted exemption to the petitioners to go to the Madras High Court or withdraw their petitions. The judges clearly stated that no one can claim this right by calling reservation a fundamental right.

Therefore, if a class is not given the benefit of quota, it cannot be considered a violation of constitutional right, in February this year, the Supreme Court had also given that the right to reservation in government jobs cannot be sought as a fundamental right.