Is SC's verdict on reservation good for our development ?

[Punnaimaran]

New Delhi:The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday stayed the implementation of the 27.5 per cent quota for Other Backward Castes in post-graduate courses.


The court was hearing a plea challenging OBC quotas in post-graduate courses by a student who is to appear for an interview for admission to the Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta.


Following the stay all admission procedures in IIM-Calcutta have been put on hold.


The High Court also stayed the interviews slated for Friday for admission of OBC candidates to post-graduate courses in the IIM-Calcutta.


Justice Maharaj Sinha, in an ex-parte interim order, granted the stay on a petition by Sayan Guha, a B-Tech student challenging the Union Human Resource Development Ministry's memorandum.


The interim order stayed till June 9 the operation of the reservation clause of IIM prospectus and also the resolution of office memorandum dated April 20, 2008, passed by the HRD Ministry.


The matter would come up for hearing again on June 9.


IIM-C had scheduled the special interview of OBC students following the HRD memorandum.


Guha's counsels Kishore Dutta and Nilava Bandopadhyay told the court that the office memo and the subsequent reservation clause were in violation of the April 10 Supreme Court order on reservation of OBCs that had set a yardstick for such quotas and defined the creamy layer that would be out of the purview of reservation.


They said while the apex court had directed that graduates would not be considered for reservation, the HRD Ministry had in violation of that passed an office memo to the effect that OBC students would get reservation in post-graduate courses.


No counsel appeared for the HRD Ministry and IIM-C.

[Punnaimaran]

SC quashes Calcutta HC order on IIM admissions
Sat, May 17 03:58 AM

The Supreme Court on Friday quashed the Calcutta High Court's order staying implementation of 27% quota for OBCs in central educational institutions even as the Centre said it was considering filing caveats before various high courts to avoid a repeat of similar instances.

Describing the high court's ex-parte interim order as "strange", the apex court said "no court can sit over its judgement" while lifting the Calcutta High Court's stay. As a result of the Supreme Court order, roadblocks on admission of OBC candidates in post-graduate courses in IIMs and IITs now have been cleared.

"Can Calcutta High Court sit over the order of the Supreme Court," the Bench headed by chief justice KG Balakrishnan and comprising Justices H K Sema and P P Naolekar, said after solicitor general G E Vahanvati questioned the legality of the high court order. "Where is the question of stay when the central educational institutions (reservation in admission) act, 2006 has been upheld," the bench said.

However, it said admissions would be provisional subject to the final outcome in the matter before it as those opposing the government memorandum for implementation of the quota in post-graduate courses have contended that the majority verdict of five-judge bench has set a benchmark that a graduate cannot be considered educationally backward.

The court stayed all proceedings relating to OBC quota that are pending in the High Courts of Delhi, Calcutta and Bombay and issued notices to those petitioners, including Delhi-based Youth for Equality, on the Centre's petition seeking transfer of those matters to the apex court.

The Bench said the concept of "creamy layer" was restricted only to class and community and those falling in the category will be excluded from the benefit of quota. "Graduation cannot be clubbed with creamy layer," justice Balakrishnan said .

[app_engine]

http://kumudam.com/magazine/Kumudam/2008-07-30/pg3.php

Article on how a press person managed to get fake community certificates for Bharathiyar and Kushboo

[app_engine]

http://dailythanthi.com/article.asp?...date=10/2/2008

Uthapuram tense again

[P_R]

Beg to differ here Joe.... even if BC/MBC or SC scores high they will end up in top 31% they will be categorized as OC, thereby permitting more SC/ST/MBC to fill their allotted quota. why is that MBC/SC/ST not have to compete openly (if they are financially and socially sound). Why should financially healthy SC/MBC & SC use reservation for their advantage?

We have discussed this at length earlier. But let me try and elaborate.
Caste based reservations are not about financial well being.
Caste based reservations are not about financial well being.
Caste based reservations are not about financial well being.

It is about reversing generations of denying access to education, where the denial was based on caste.
It is unfortunate that even the ones from the castes that have enjoyed access to education for so long view this as vindictive and fail to see the social purpose of the whole thing.

A highly disproportionate advantage enjoyed by a select few castes has been slightly eroded by reservations. Truly that is all that has happened. Nothing more.
Most of the disappointment and whining that we see around this is largely about this. Would anyone at all contest the fact that the forward castes still occuppy leading positons in most walks of life. I am not even suggesting this is some scheming cornering of plum spots. It is an absolutely natural outcome of generations of sociocultural capital that they have built up and so on. But if one were to hear them complain, one would be misled into believing they are being witchhunted and strangled - which is a highly unfair claim.

From a society which has a long history of perpetuating instrinsic inequities based on birth, we are building one where we want a greater participation in all walks of life from all castes. I repeat: this is NOT about financial well being alone. TN has had one of the (if not the) longest history of reservations in India dating back to the 30s. The results are there to be seen.

No candidate who is in the top 50% in a merit list gets rejected. Whiners either don't understand this or intentionally suppress this information.
This is true even with the 69% reservation in TN (I understood this only recently and can explain if you are interested)

I do have my reservations about the reservation system and its progressively counterproductive static design. But we must remember that, we can afford to talk about reform and tweaks in a state like TN which has seen the benefits percolate over years. Most other states have a long way to go before we can even discuss this.

For instance consider the creamy-layer clause. Other things remaining equal within a caste category it is reasonable to assume the 'creamy layer' can compete better academically. Note: we are not talking about how the Open Competition seats. Only the reserved seats. In which situations will the 'creamy layer' filter truly help the reserved categories enabling true targeting (as its proponents claim is its purpose)? Only in states where there a vast number of able candidates both in creamy and non-creamy layers within a reserved category. Then the clause can prevent the former from taking the seats which the latter ought to get, which is the true purpose of reservation. There may - I can't say this for certainty - be a reasonable case for this in TN based on the across-the-board development we have experienced. But certainly not all over India.

In an underdeveloped state (eg. Chattisgarh) it is quite likely that the only few reserved category candidates who are able to compete at the highest level may be ones in the creamy layer. We are not at a stage of social development where we can afford to exclude them and thereby perpetuate the disproportionate overrepresentation of the already forward caste categories - which is what the system seeks to counter.


We badly badly need a caste census to assess where we stand today and debate and arrive at suitable policy changes.
Quite curiously, you will find that the people who oppose the caste census happen to be people who oppose reservations!

[cm123]

I got 87% and was able to get only very average private engineering college. We have to studay well even with reservation.

[P_R]

Of course. A few years back Joe shared the medical cutoffs for the various categories.
Anyone who has seen them, can clearly see how hollow and prejudiced the 'death of merit' arguments are.

[joe]

இட ஒதுக்கீடு குறித்த அடிப்படை விடயங்களை அறிந்து கொள்ள விழைவோருக்கு.

இட ஒதுக்கீடு பற்றிய ஒரு வரலாற்று குறிப்பு

http://dharumi.blogspot.com/2006/08/168.html

புதியவர்களுக்காக ...

[joe]

ஏன் வேண்டும் இட ஒதுக்கீடு -கட்டுரைகளின் தொகுப்பு

http://kuzhali.blogspot.com/2007/03/blog-post_30.html

புதியவர்களுக்காக ...

[jaiganes]

Of course. A few years back Joe shared the medical cutoffs for the various categories.
Anyone who has seen them, can clearly see how hollow and prejudiced the 'death of merit' arguments are.

Folks railing against 'affirmative action' and creamy layer do so like frogs in a well. they need to come out of their bubble
and look how societies are being rebuilt with strength due to affirmative actions. It sure takes a while and only point worthy in their
arguments is the suggestion to revisit the quotas every 10 years or so based on census data and see if a particular community needs to be
moved closer to the "Open" category (while expanding the 'open' quota space).