Bihar: High Court stays 65 percent reservation, opposition parties demand to challenge it in Supreme Court

RJD Rajya Sabha member Prof. Manoj Jha and CPI-ML National General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya have demanded to challenge the High Court’s decision in the Supreme Court. Prof. Jha has also raised questions on the social background of the petitioners in his statement.

The Patna High Court has stayed the state government’s decision to increase the reservation for SC, ST, OBC from 50 percent to 65 percent after the caste survey last year. Regarding this, members of Bihar’s opposition parties RJD and CPI-ML have demanded the state government to challenge the High Court’s decision in the Supreme Court.

In this regard, RJD Rajya Sabha MP Prof. Manoj Jha said that “I consider the High Court’s decision regarding reservation, the ban on the reservation scope increased by the Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav government, very unfortunate. Such decisions increase the distance in achieving the goals of social justice. We remember that Tamil Nadu also took many years and had to struggle. We are also ready. But we will definitely say that look at the social background of these petitioners. Who are these people behind the scenes, who are getting this work done, in which they are playing the role of a very enthusiastic and catalyst. We saw this during the caste census as well. I will request and our Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav kept saying in every election rally that include this law in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution. See, what has been achieved as a result of not doing so. Even now we will request that the NDA government is running with the grace of Nitish ji, at this time he should take this matter to the higher court in accordance with the aspirations of the people and the rights of a large population should be protected. I believe that this struggle will definitely be long, but we will succeed.” On the other hand, CPI-ML National General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya has said in his reaction that “Modi government first crossed the limit of 50 percent by implementing 10 percent EWS and the Supreme Court upheld it. After the caste census of Bihar, the assembly and the state government increased the reservation for SC/ST, EBC and OBC. The High Court’s decision cancelling the increased reservation for SC/ST/EBC/OBC is clearly regressive. The people of Bihar will struggle to get their rights.”

While CPI-ML State Secretary Kunal has described the cancellation of the decision of the Grand Alliance government in Bihar to increase the reservation limit of Dalit-deprived community to 65 percent by the Patna High Court as a gross injustice to the deprived community.

He said that in this period of organised attack on reservation of deprived community and weakening it, the Mahagathbandhan government had increased the reservation of OBC, EBC, Dalit and Adivasis to 65 percent on the basis of caste based census, which was absolutely justified. The High Court should have understood that the decision to extend the reservation was taken on a very solid basis.

Let us tell you that the basis for the expansion of reservation quota was the caste survey census report released by the state government last year, in which it was found that the population of all socially and educationally backward communities (not EWS) in the state is 85.5 percent. Among these, the population of OBC-EBC was stated to be 63.1 percent of the total population of Bihar.

Kunal said that BJP has been against caste census from the very beginning. After usurping the power of Bihar, it has been very active to get the 65 percent reservation cancelled. Its own people had gone to the court against the caste census. He also said that our judicial system has proved the 10 percent unconstitutional reservation for upper castes to be correct but is calling the expansion of reservation in favour of Dalits and deprived as unconstitutional. This is a very ridiculous argument. Today it has been proved once again that as long as BJP is there, our constitution, democracy and reservation are in danger.

He said that we urge the Bihar government to immediately approach the Supreme Court against this unjust decision and take concrete steps to protect the expansion of reservation for Dalit-deprived community.

Courtesy : Hindi News