BHOPAL (Madhya Pradesh): High Court will be hearing the plea for increasing the quota for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in state government jobs and for admission in educational institutions from the existing 14% to 27% on Monday.
HC already has stayed on the matter to raise the OBC quota to 27% in the MPPSC and other recruitment exams.
An application moved by the state government to vacate the stay on September 1, 2021, was also turned down by the court while fixing the case for final arguments.
The petitioners challenging the legality of the hike in OBC quota had contended that as per the law laid down in the Indra Sawhney case, the constitution bench of the supreme court has fixed the maximum limit of caste-based reservation at 50%. if the OBC reservation is raised to 27%, the total reservation in the state government jobs and educational institutions will go up to 63%.
Kamal Nath-led Congress government, on March 8, 2019, passed an ordinance increasing reservation for the OBC category to 27% from the existing 14% in the state. About 10 days later, four MBBS students appearing for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) examination seeking admission to medical colleges had challenged the MP’s government’s ordinance, citing Article 14 of the constitution and pleading equality before the law.
Aditya Sanghi, who was representing the petitioners, had argued that as a result of the ordinance increasing OBC reservation to 27%, over and above the 16% reservation for Schedule Castes (SC) and 20% for Scheduled Tribes (ST), the statutorily prescribed reservation had gone up to 63%, which he called constitutionally impermissible.
