Centre moves apex court on quota order

The Centre on Monday moved an application before the Supreme Court seeking to vacate its order staying the implementation of 27 per cent quota for OBCs in elite educational institutions.

The Supreme Court posted the Centre’s application seeking vacation of its order, which stayed the implementation of 27 per cent quota for OBCs in elite educational institutions, for hearing on Tuesday. A directive in this regard was issued by a Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan.

The Centre has sought that the March 29 order be vacated since certain facts and circumstances were discovered subsequently.

The Centre also said many Central institutions had initiated the process of increasing the number of seats and admission to the seats reserved for the OBCs. However, the process was held back due to the stay, the application said. A number of institutions were also making selections against the reserved seats but had to stop it in view of the Court order, the application filed by ASG Gopal Subramanium stated.

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Earlier on March 29, a Bench headed by Justice Arijit Pasayat had stayed the implementation of Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006 following lack of comprehensive data by the Centre on who comprises backward classes.

Yet again seeking to get reservation implemented, the Centre submitted that in case the stay continues to be operative, a large number of candidates selected under the OBC category would not be able to get admission and would lose a year. It maintained that the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006 protected the number of seats available to the general category in the previous academic year while increasing seats for the socially and educationally backward classes and proportionately for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and therefore was not detrimental to the interest of any section of the population.