EWS Quota Case Hearing Day 6 - Live Updates From Supreme Court

SG: Two kinds of Judgements- that 50% should not be ordinarily accepted and other category saying that 50% is merely a thumb rule and not an inviolable rule.

SG: 50% limit being a thumb rule is not sacrosanct and cannot be elevated to the level of basic structure.

SG: It is curable, the government can come out with a commission. If without that exercise, some state implements EWS, that act, that executive act can be challenged.

CJI: You're right, these are all curable things. Accepted.

Justice Dinesh Maheshwari: There is no methodology provided but in SEBCs you have identification methods like 338 etc. Here, there is no methodology at all, no guidelines.

SG: Absence of guidelines, is not a ground for challenging amendment, it's not basic structure.

SG: This 8 lakh figure has not been arrived at just like that- by a detailed study parameters have been fixed. Earlier, a person having a telephone was not poor but today a person with a telephone can be poor. 

SG: There is no set guidelines to determine SEBCs, just like there is none for EWS.

SG: I would disagree for SEBCs. SEBCs is a flexible class.

CJI: That is for the parliament to address if there is over inclusion etc.

SG: I am saying something. SEBC, there is no permanence like SC/STs. There is flexibility.

CJI: When it is about other reservations, it is attached to lineage. That backwardness is not something which is not temporary but goes down to centuries and generations. But economic backwardness can be temporary. 

SG: Social backwardness is also not defined.

J Bhat: There you have to go beyond the constitution - you go to preamble, speeches- Dr. Ambedkar, stigmatization.

In case of 16(3), geographical discrimination cannot be by states, only parliament can. Here, you are in uncharted sea.