New Delhi: Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal accused the opposition of creating confusion among the people with the Supreme Court’s “observation” on the “upper class” among the chief justices and fellows, and claimed that the Constitution presented by BR Ambedkar did not provide for such an upper class.
In an interview with PTI Videos, he said that the BJP-led NDA government will abide by Ambedkar’s Constitution and continue the reservation system for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as provided under it.
Meghwal noted that the opposition knows that the Supreme Court has only made an “observation” about the top layer, but they are trying to create confusion among the people.
On Saturday, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had said that the idea of denying reservation to SCs and STs on the basis of the “creamy layer” concept was “objectionable”.
He also said the government should have introduced a bill in Parliament to repeal the part of the recent Supreme Court ruling dealing with this issue.
Meghwal stressed that the Supreme Court has said that the states can do sub-classification if they wish. But the Supreme Court has not yet taken a decision on upper class. It is an observation, he claimed.
“There is a difference between instruction and observation,” he reminded the opposition.
Earlier this month, a seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud ruled in a 6-1 majority that state governments were permitted to further classify municipalities within the Supreme Court’s list based on empirical data.
Supreme Court Justice BR Gavai had said that states must develop a policy to identify the upper class among the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Schedule Tribes (ST) and deny them the benefits of reservation.
Justice Gavai wrote a separate but concurring judgment in which the Supreme Court by a majority held that states have the power to make sub-classifications for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in order to grant quotas within the reserved category and thus provide advantages to the members of the more underprivileged castes.
The Union Cabinet on Friday discussed in detail the Supreme Court verdict on sub-categorisation of reservation for SCs and STs under the Constitution at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“The Union Cabinet is of the considered view that the NDA government is firmly committed to the provisions of the Constitution enacted by Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar,” Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told reporters.
