Economically Backward Reservation: A Paradigm Shift in Public Policy

Abstract

The Government of India came up with the 103 rd Amendment for reserving 10% of jobs and entry into public educational institutions for economically weaker sections (EWS) of the society. This is a significant departure from earlier reservation for SC/ST and OBCs, which were ‘vertical’ in nature while the 2019 Act for EWS is ‘horizontal’ in character. The Supreme Court has put a cap of 50% in total for different types of reservation, keeping in mind the constitutional stipulation that it should be reasonable and proportionate. In Indra Sawhney judgement, (1992) the court has excluded creamy layer from the ambit of reservation for the OBC. The Madras High Court has asked to Tamil Nadu government to get concurrence of Supreme Court to provide 10% reservation to medical seats to EWS, as it would cross the cap of 50%. This paper is an attempt to run through political and judicial journey in looking at the conflicting challenges of equality of opportunity with affirmative action for bolstering socio-economic vulnerable sections of the society. It does not, prima facie, find any infirmity in the notion of economic backwardness qualifying for reservation as against caste based reservation. The paper also unveils how the income limit of Rs.8 lakhs per annum to qualify as EWS is humongous and at variance with the definition of BPL families whose per capita income was pitched at Rs.33 per day by the Tendulkar Committee in 2011. Many judges of the Supreme Court have observed that caste based or income based reservation has the disadvantage of promoting inefficiency in government jobs, particularly in specialised areas. Liberal democracy and market economy put a premium on competition and efficiency as the sine qua non of higher growth . The paper argues that a better way for promoting equality is to create an enabling environment, build human capability in terms of vocational training, skilling, access to state of art technology and higher social sector investment in merit goods, than is being presently done.