Supreme Court CB To Hear Challenge Against Extending Political Reservation For SC/ST Communities On 1st November

In pleas challenging the constitutional validity of extending the political reservation granted to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities in Lok Sabha and State Legislature beyond the original ten years contemplated by the Constitution, the Supreme Court, on Wednesday, has posted the matter for direction on 1st November, 2022.

The matter was before the Constitution Bench comprising Justices D.Y. Chandrachud, M.R. Shah, Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli and P.S. Narasimha.

Article 330-334 of the Constitution of India, 1950 are safeguards to ensure political representation in the Parliament as well as the State Legislatures for the Anglo Indians and Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe communities. It provides for reservation of seats in Lok Sabha & Legislative Assemblies for SC/ST communities and nomination for Anglo Indians. The reservation and nomination, both were initially contemplated for 10 years. However, considering that the social conditions of the said communities had not improved and it was still not feasible for them to be represented in the Legislature by way of election, extension was granted after expiration of every 10 years. The last extension was granted by way of the Constitution (104th Amendment Act) 2020. The benefit of the extension granted in 2020 only enures to the SC/ST communities and not the Anglo Indians. The reservation extended for the SC/ST communities in 2020, would continue till 2030.

In these batch of cases, the petitioners have challenged the validity of the Constitution (79th Amendment) Act, 1999 whereby the words 'sixty years' have been substituted in place of 'fifty years' in Article 334 of the Constitution- which provides for reservation of seats for SC/ST and special reservation in Parliament and assemblies. Their counsel argued that this amendment is against the basic feature of the Constitution. According to them, democracy has been recognised as one of the essential features of the Constitution by this Court and since the Amendment Act deprive the democratic rights of the petitioners, inasmuch as it is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution, it deserves to be struck down. The Apex Court had transferred the matter to a 5-judge bench on 02.09.2003.

In 2020, through the Constitution (104th) Amendment Act, reservation for SC/ST communities was extended for a further period of 10 years and the reservation for Anglo-Indian communities was done away with.