States to enact quota laws under 104th Amendment

The House passed the amendment with 172 voting in favour and just two members voting against it. The BJP protested the exemption of minority institutions from the purview of the new clause, but an amendment moved by Sushmar Swaraj to delete this provision was voted out.

The new clause allows for the ‘‘advancement’’ of SCs, STs and OBCs, through ‘‘special provisions’’ for their admission to educational institutions… whether aided or unaided by the State’’. The provision will enable states to enforce a differential fee structure for students from such categories, admitted to private educational institutes, under the specified quotas.

Participating in the debate, the elders were unanimous that some social control and regulation was called for in privately run, self-financed, educational institutions. Members across parties also supported the government view that reservation policy should apply to private institutes also.

However, the exemption of minority insitutions from the quota clause created dissent. Whereas the BJP wanted the entire provision deleted from the amendment, the CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury said measures should be taken to prevent the misuse of ‘‘minority status to run commercial educational enterprises’’.

Responding to their concerns, Arjun Singh said the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions will soon be authorised to debar those misusing minority status.

But the proposed state laws cannot force private educational providers to admit students from the general merit category, as tried in Kerala. An earlier model of self-financing colleges worked on the principle of 50 per cent high-fees paying students cross-subsidising the other 50 per cent which used to be shared among the general merit and reserved categories. The SC order had declared all such demands on the private providers as ‘‘unconstitutional’’. The 104th amendment meets only the claims of SC/ST and OBCs.