http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Time-to-review-27-OBC-quota-in-education/articleshow/6155833.cms
Time to review 27% OBC quota in education?
Dhananjay Mahapatra, TNN, Jul 12, 2010, 02.35am IST
NEW DELHI: This is the third academic year after Supreme Court on
April 10, 2008, upheld the legislation providing 27% reservation for
other backward castes (OBCs) in admissions to central educational
institutions.
The apex court had excluded the creamy layer from benefiting under the
27% quota and said unfilled seats would be go back to the general
category. The government had also assured the court that general
category seats would not shrink as the institutions would create more
seats to absorb the reservation requirement.
We can discount the chaos of filling the seats created for OBCs under
the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admissions) Act,
2007, in 2008-09 as teething problem despite the admission process
getting extended till October. However, the data for the next two
academic years gives an impression that the quantum of 27% may have
been far in excess of what was needed to meet the demographic demand.
In 2009-10, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) transferred 83 of the
413 seats reserved for OBCs to the general category. Of the 10,183 OBC
seats in Delhi University, there were no takers for nearly 2,300
seats.
This year too, DU is witnessing a similar story. University officials
are fearing that nearly 6,000 seats may get transferred to general
category for want of suitable candidates from backward classes,
despite the cut-off being 10 marks less than the last general category
candidate taking admission in the institution.
The general category may not be complaining. But the increased number
of seats will definitely put pressure on the already stretched
faculty, library facilities and allied educational resources available
with the institution.
This is what happens when the political class, without any scientific
survey, fixes quota without identifying what constitutes backwardness
in the social and educational maze. The Supreme Court had repeatedly
warned against this, right from Indra Sawhney judgment in 1992 till
the Ashoka Kumar Thakur judgment in 2008.
Socially and educationally backward classes (SEBCs), who are entitled
for the 27% reservation in government-run colleges and institutions,
are at present determined solely on the basis of the backwardness of
their caste. In both these judgments relating to OBC reservation in
employment and admission, the apex court had stressed that caste could
not be the sole criterion for identifying the social and educational
backwardness of a person.
So, without a proper identification of SEBCs, their number was
guesstimated and a percentage of seats was kept reserved for them. The
apex court realised it but was hampered without contradicting data to
fault the socially affirmative action. That is why it suggested
periodic review of the quantum of quota as well as the necessity of
reservation in admission for SEBCs.
"There must be periodic review as to the desirability of continuing
operation of the statute -- Central Educational Institutions
(Reservations in Admission Act, 2007. This shall be done once every
five years," the five-judge constitution Bench had said in Ashoka
Thakur case.
Is the government prepared to review working of the 2007 law? If not,
then it could utilise the opportunity provided by the census exercise
presently underway to determine the exact number of persons to be
included in the socially and educationally backward category to help
work out the percentage of reservation needed.
dhananjay.mahapatra@timesgroup.com
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