Centre moves SC for review of verdict scrapping quota for Jats

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The Centre, in its review plea, has said “the Centre’s power to make available quota for a community is not dependent on the advice of the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC)”.

Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh said the review plea was filed on Wednesday.

While dismissing a petition by a group of Jat students seeking benefits of reservation under the OBC category in post-graduate medical and dental courses two days ago, the apex court, however, said the NCBC’s recommendations would be ordinarily binding on the government.

The government’s plea further said the test laid down by the apex court in the Mandal judgement for determination of “social, educational and economic backwardness” of Jats had been complied with.

The decision to include Jats in Central OBC list was taken after various state panels furnished reports favouring the inclusion, it said.

Earlier, a bench of justices Ranjan Gogoi and R F Nariman, setting aside the March 4, 2014 notification that had enabled Jats to claim reservation in nine states, had said that “possible wrong inclusions” cannot be the basis of further inclusion, and reservation should be given only to the “most distressed”.

It had referred to various constitutional schemes and the NCBC report and said the finding of the OBC panel that Jats do not deserve to be given quota benefits was “supported by good and acceptable reasons”.

The court also said the NCBC had considered reports of state backward classes panels and other literature on the subject before recommending that Jats should not be included in the list of OBCs.

The Jats were included in the central list OBCs for getting reservation in states like Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.