The Evening Wrap: Does EWS quota violate Basic Structure? Constitution Bench asks Union, States

A Constitution Bench on Tuesday asked the Centre, States and petitioners to firm up a slew of concerns raised in the Supreme Court about granting reservation on a purely economic basis, one of them being whether it is a violation of the very basic structure of the Constitution to exclude Scheduled Castes, Tribes and some of the most impoverished, socially and educationally backward classes in the country from the scope of the quota. The five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice of India U.U. Lalit is considering the validity of the 103rd Constitutional Amendment, which provides a 10% quota to economically weaker sections (EWS) of the society in government jobs and educational institutions. Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, on the court’s orders, had prepared the draft legal issues for the Bench to examine. On Tuesday, the Bench asked the draft issues to be circulated so that the Union, States and petitioners could study them. The court scheduled the next hearing on Thursday to “crystallise” the issues finally. The CJI said the Bench would start hearing the case on Tuesday next. Chief Justice Lalit indicated that the arguments on both sides should conclude in seven days. Sankaranarayanan has highlighted five draft issues in the case. These include whether the 103rd Amendment violated the Indira Sawhney judgment of 1992 which had prohibited reservation on the basis of a “purely” economic criterion. Besides raising the question of whether the amendment “breached the Basic Structure of the Constitution in excluding the SEBCs/OBc/SCs/STs from the scope of EWS reservation”, the draft issues highlights if the 10% EWS quota infringed the 50% ceiling limit for reservation. The draft document has also asked the court ruminate and decide if the EWS quota should be imposed in private unaided institutions. Finally, the court wants the government, States and parties to consider the draft issue as to “whether the 103rd Constitution Amendment breaches the equality code and the Constitutional scheme by giving sanctity to the ‘existing reservation’ which are only created temporarily by enabling provisions”. The challenge to the 103rd Constitutional Amendment was referred to a five-judge Bench in August 2020. The three-judge Bench, which had referred the case to the larger Bench, had refused to stay the implementation of the amendment. Economic reservation was introduced in the Constitution by amending Articles 15 and 16 and adding clauses empowering the State governments to provide reservation on the basis of economic backwardness. “It is the case of the petitioners that the very amendment runs contrary to the Constitutional scheme and no segment of available seats/posts can be reserved, only on the basis of economic criterion. As such, we are of the view that such questions do constitute substantial questions of law to be considered by a Bench of five judges,” the three-judge Bench had concluded. The Centre had argued that it was every State’s prerogative to provide 10% economic reservation in State government jobs and admissions in State-run educational institutions. “Whether or not to provide reservation to the economically weaker section (EWS) of the society for appointment in State government jobs and for admission to State government educational institutions, as per provisions of the newly inserted Articles 15(6) and 16(6) of the Constitution is to be decided by the State government concerned,” a seven-page affidavit of the Union had said. India, Bangladesh ink first water sharing pact in 25 years; PM Hasina flags Teesta India and Bangladesh on September 6 signed an interim water-sharing agreement for Kushiyara river, the first such pact since the signing of the Ganga water treaty in 1996. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina noted that India and Bangladesh share 54 rivers and sought early conclusion of the Teesta water sharing agreement, which has been hanging fire for more than a decade due to opposition from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. India and Bangladesh signed a memorandum of understanding on sharing of waters of Kushiyara river, a pact that will benefit people residing in southern Assam and the Sylhet division of Bangladesh. “Today, we have signed an important agreement on sharing water of the Kushiyara river. This will benefit southern Assam in India and Sylhet region in Bangladesh,” Modi told reporters after the talks with Hasina. He said there were 54 rivers that pass through the Indo-Bangladesh border, and have been linked to the livelihood of the people of the two countries for centuries. “These rivers, folk tales about them, folk songs, have also been witness to our shared cultural heritage,” Modi said. Hasina shared the sentiments expressed by Modi and also stressed the need to have water-sharing agreements for other rivers as well. “I recall that the two countries have resolved many issues in the spirit of friendship and cooperation. We hope that all outstanding issues, including Teesta water sharing agreement, will be concluded as an early date,” Hasina said at a joint media interaction at the Hyderabad House. “There are 54 rivers. As long as Prime Minister Modi is here, India and Bangladesh will resolve all these issues,” she said. Modi also said he and Hasina had a fruitful conversation on enhancing cooperation in relation to flood mitigation. “India has been sharing flood-related data with Bangladesh on a real-time basis and we have also extended the period of data sharing,” Modi said. Earlier, Hasina was accorded a ceremonial reception at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhawan where Modi extended a warm welcome to her. She said the two nations were also working to develop stronger economic ties to fulfill the basic needs of the people of the two countries. “Our main aim is to develop the economy and fulfill the basic needs of our people. With friendship you can solve any problem. So we always do that,” Hasina said. India and Bangladesh had signed the Ganga water treaty in 1996 for sharing waters of the mighty river for a period of 30 years. The treaty was signed by the then prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda and Hasina. Non-locals, security personnel being registered as voters in Kashmir: Mehbooba Mufti Former Chief Minister and Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday claimed that non-local labourers and security forces personnel were being enlisted as voters in north Kashmir’s Baramulla. “According to reports, verbal orders were passed at an administrative meeting in Baramulla yesterday by district Tehsildar to enrol non-local labourers, CISF, CRPF, BSF & army personnel as voters,” Mufti said, in a tweet. She asked the administration to “come clean on this.” Mufti's statement comes a day after her party took objection to registration of outsiders as voters during the all party meeting convened by the Chief Electoral Officer in Jammu on Monday. “The ruling government at the Centre has started the process of taking away the peoples’ rights and diluting public will here on August 5, 2019 and now they have added a new chapter to it by saying they will add non-local voters. They are trying hard to change the identity, democratic rights, and electoral demography of the people of Jammu & Kashmir, but it is not acceptable to the people of Jammu & Kashmir under any circumstances,” the PDP said in the meeting. The PDP had demanded that the registration camps for new voters should be organised in far off and inaccessible areas so that none are left behind in participating in the democratic process. Meanwhile, CEO Hirdesh Kumar, referring to his earlier statement on inclusion of fresh voters in J&K, said, “The figure of 25 lakh additions doesn’t have any sanctity and actual number of voters added would be determined only after revision of electoral rolls.” He said only those who are eligible as per the Representation of the Peoples Act-1951 would be registered as voters. The BJP and Ikk Jutt Jammu have not objected to the move to allow outsiders to enlist as voters during the meeting. Earlier, only State Subjects, those who have been living in J&K since 1929, were allowed to register as voters. However, after the Centre ended J&K's special constitutional position in 2019, outsiders can now register as voters in the Union Territory. African cheetahs may arrive in India for PM Modi’s birthday The much-awaited arrival of African cheetahs to India may be timed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday on September 17, suggests a statement by Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan on Tuesday. Addressing a gathering of officials prior to a meeting of the State Cabinet, Chauhan is heard saying: “It is the Prime Minister’s birthday on the 17th of September and I’m happy to convey that he will be in Madhya Pradesh. The cheetahs are expected to arrive on that day and we will be organising a function in Kuno Palpur on that day to mark their arrival in his presence.” A video grab of Chauhan announcing this was available on his official Twitter feed. Kuno-Palpur is the forest reserve expected to house the cheetahs. A person closely connected to the cheetah translocation project told The Hindu, on condition of anonymity, that “as of today this is the plan.” Eight animals sourced from Namibia and currently quarantined in South Africa for medical evaluation are expected to arrive in India this month. The translocation of cheetahs, as The Hindu has earlier reported, has missed multiple unofficial deadlines due to factors ranging from the animal’s enclosures not being fully readied, to diplomatic formalities involving South Africa and India not being completed. India’s action plan, a long-term translocation project made public this February, on re-establishing the cheetah — extinct since 1952 in India — states that a cohort of around 10-12 young would be imported from Namibia and South Africa as a founder stock during the first year. Once the cheetahs arrive, they are expected to be housed in ‘predator-proof’ enclosures that are 6-7 square kilometres large. This is part of the plan to help the animals acclimatise to Indian conditions. However, a local obstacle to the cheetah was that the current enclosures in Kuno-Palpur had five leopards, all of whom needed to be relocated as it was inadvisable to have the two species coexist during the cheetah’s acclimatisation. Over time, says the action plan by the Centre, cheetah and leopard populations will be able to coexist. The initial batch of cheetahs and their potential offspring will be radio-collared and tracked for at least 10 years. The quest to have cheetahs in India spans more than a decade with the initial plan to translocate Asian cheetahs from Iran having come to naught and the United Progressive Alliance leadership in 2011 deciding to look at the related species of African cheetah from South Africa, Namibia and Tanzania. Matters accelerated after the Supreme Court in 2020 cleared a pilot project to introduce the African cheetah from Namibia into India and appointed a three-member committee to oversee it. In Brief: Conservative Party leader Liz Truss was on Tuesday formally appointed as Britain’s new Prime Minister by Queen Elizabeth II, becoming the third female premier of the country. Truss travelled to the 96-year-old monarch’s Balmoral Castle residence in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, to meet the Queen who formally asked her to form a new government. [logo] The Evening Wrap 06 SEPTEMBER 2022 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( Does EWS quota violate Basic Structure? Constitution Bench asks Union, States, parties to ‘crystallise’ their thoughts by Thursday [A Constitution Bench on Tuesday asked the Centre, States and petitioners to firm up a slew of concerns raised in the Supreme Court]( about granting reservation on a purely economic basis, one of them being whether it is a violation of the very basic structure of the Constitution to exclude Scheduled Castes, Tribes and some of the most impoverished, socially and educationally backward classes in the country from the scope of the quota. The five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice of India U.U. Lalit is considering the validity of the 103rd Constitutional Amendment, which provides a 10% quota to economically weaker sections (EWS) of the society in government jobs and educational institutions. Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, on the court’s orders, had prepared the draft legal issues for the Bench to examine. On Tuesday, the Bench asked the draft issues to be circulated so that the Union, States and petitioners could study them. The court scheduled the next hearing on Thursday to “crystallise” the issues finally. The CJI said the Bench would start hearing the case on Tuesday next. Chief Justice Lalit indicated that the arguments on both sides should conclude in seven days. Sankaranarayanan has highlighted five draft issues in the case. These include whether the 103rd Amendment violated the Indira Sawhney judgment of 1992 which had prohibited reservation on the basis of a “purely” economic criterion. Besides raising the question of whether the amendment “breached the Basic Structure of the Constitution in excluding the SEBCs/OBc/SCs/STs from the scope of EWS reservation”, the draft issues highlights if the 10% EWS quota infringed the 50% ceiling limit for reservation. The draft document has also asked the court ruminate and decide if the EWS quota should be imposed in private unaided institutions. Finally, the court wants the government, States and parties to consider the draft issue as to “whether the 103rd Constitution Amendment breaches the equality code and the Constitutional scheme by giving sanctity to the ‘existing reservation’ which are only created temporarily by enabling provisions”. The challenge to the 103rd Constitutional Amendment was referred to a five-judge Bench in August 2020. The three-judge Bench, which had referred the case to the larger Bench, had refused to stay the implementation of the amendment. Economic reservation was introduced in the Constitution by amending Articles 15 and 16 and adding clauses empowering the State governments to provide reservation on the basis of economic backwardness. “It is the case of the petitioners that the very amendment runs contrary to the Constitutional scheme and no segment of available seats/posts can be reserved, only on the basis of economic criterion. As such, we are of the view that such questions do constitute substantial questions of law to be considered by a Bench of five judges,” the three-judge Bench had concluded. The Centre had argued that it was every State’s prerogative to provide 10% economic reservation in State government jobs and admissions in State-run educational institutions. “Whether or not to provide reservation to the economically weaker section (EWS) of the society for appointment in State government jobs and for admission to State government educational institutions, as per provisions of the newly inserted Articles 15(6) and 16(6) of the Constitution is to be decided by the State government concerned,” a seven-page affidavit of the Union had said. India, Bangladesh ink first water sharing pact in 25 years; PM Hasina flags Teesta [India and Bangladesh on September 6 signed an interim water-sharing agreement for Kushiyara river]( the first such pact since the signing of the Ganga water treaty in 1996. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina noted that India and Bangladesh share 54 rivers and sought early conclusion of the Teesta water sharing agreement, which has been hanging fire for more than a decade due to opposition from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. [Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after the meeting at Hyderabad House, in New Delhi.] India and Bangladesh signed a memorandum of understanding on sharing of waters of Kushiyara river, a pact that will benefit people residing in southern Assam and the Sylhet division of Bangladesh. “Today, we have signed an important agreement on sharing water of the Kushiyara river. This will benefit southern Assam in India and Sylhet region in Bangladesh,” Modi told reporters after the talks with Hasina. He said there were 54 rivers that pass through the Indo-Bangladesh border, and have been linked to the livelihood of the people of the two countries for centuries. “These rivers, folk tales about them, folk songs, have also been witness to our shared cultural heritage,” Modi said. Hasina shared the sentiments expressed by Modi and also stressed the need to have water-sharing agreements for other rivers as well. “I recall that the two countries have resolved many issues in the spirit of friendship and cooperation. We hope that all outstanding issues, including Teesta water sharing agreement, will be concluded as an early date,” Hasina said at a joint media interaction at the Hyderabad House. “There are 54 rivers. As long as Prime Minister Modi is here, India and Bangladesh will resolve all these issues,” she said. Modi also said he and Hasina had a fruitful conversation on enhancing cooperation in relation to flood mitigation. “India has been sharing flood-related data with Bangladesh on a real-time basis and we have also extended the period of data sharing,” Modi said. Earlier, Hasina was accorded a ceremonial reception at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhawan where Modi extended a warm welcome to her. She said the two nations were also working to develop stronger economic ties to fulfill the basic needs of the people of the two countries. “Our main aim is to develop the economy and fulfill the basic needs of our people. With friendship you can solve any problem. So we always do that,” Hasina said. India and Bangladesh had signed the Ganga water treaty in 1996 for sharing waters of the mighty river for a period of 30 years. The treaty was signed by the then prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda and Hasina. Non-locals, security personnel being registered as voters in Kashmir: Mehbooba Mufti [Former Chief Minister and Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday claimed]( that non-local labourers and security forces personnel were being enlisted as voters in north Kashmir’s Baramulla. “According to reports, verbal orders were passed at an administrative meeting in Baramulla yesterday by district Tehsildar to enrol non-local labourers, CISF, CRPF, BSF & army personnel as voters,” Mufti said, in a tweet. [PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti. File] She asked the administration to “come clean on this.” Mufti's statement comes a day after her party took objection to registration of outsiders as voters during the all party meeting convened by the Chief Electoral Officer in Jammu on Monday. “The ruling government at the Centre has started the process of taking away the peoples’ rights and diluting public will here on August 5, 2019 and now they have added a new chapter to it by saying they will add non-local voters. They are trying hard to change the identity, democratic rights, and electoral demography of the people of Jammu & Kashmir, but it is not acceptable to the people of Jammu & Kashmir under any circumstances,” the PDP said in the meeting. The PDP had demanded that the registration camps for new voters should be organised in far off and inaccessible areas so that none are left behind in participating in the democratic process. Meanwhile, CEO Hirdesh Kumar, referring to his earlier statement on inclusion of fresh voters in J&K, said, “The figure of 25 lakh additions doesn’t have any sanctity and actual number of voters added would be determined only after revision of electoral rolls.” He said only those who are eligible as per the Representation of the Peoples Act-1951 would be registered as voters. The BJP and Ikk Jutt Jammu have not objected to the move to allow outsiders to enlist as voters during the meeting. Earlier, only State Subjects, those who have been living in J&K since 1929, were allowed to register as voters. However, after the Centre ended J&K's special constitutional position in 2019, outsiders can now register as voters in the Union Territory. African cheetahs may arrive in India for PM Modi’s birthday The much-awaited arrival of African cheetahs to India may be timed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday on September 17, suggests a statement by Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan on Tuesday. Addressing a gathering of officials prior to a meeting of the State Cabinet, Chauhan is heard saying: “It is the Prime Minister’s birthday on the 17th of September and I’m happy to convey that he will be in Madhya Pradesh. The cheetahs are expected to arrive on that day and we will be organising a function in Kuno Palpur on that day to mark their arrival in his presence.” A video grab of Chauhan announcing this was available on his official Twitter feed. Kuno-Palpur is the forest reserve expected to house the cheetahs. A person closely connected to the cheetah translocation project told The Hindu, on condition of anonymity, that “as of today this is the plan.” Eight animals sourced from Namibia and currently quarantined in South Africa for medical evaluation are expected to arrive in India this month. The translocation of cheetahs, as The Hindu has earlier reported, has missed multiple unofficial deadlines due to factors ranging from the animal’s enclosures not being fully readied, to diplomatic formalities involving South Africa and India not being completed. India’s action plan, a long-term translocation project made public this February, on re-establishing the cheetah — extinct since 1952 in India — states that a cohort of around 10-12 young would be imported from Namibia and South Africa as a founder stock during the first year. Once the cheetahs arrive, they are expected to be housed in ‘predator-proof’ enclosures that are 6-7 square kilometres large. This is part of the plan to help the animals acclimatise to Indian conditions. However, a local obstacle to the cheetah was that the current enclosures in Kuno-Palpur had five leopards, all of whom needed to be relocated as it was inadvisable to have the two species coexist during the cheetah’s acclimatisation. Over time, says the action plan by the Centre, cheetah and leopard populations will be able to coexist. The initial batch of cheetahs and their potential offspring will be radio-collared and tracked for at least 10 years. The quest to have cheetahs in India spans more than a decade with the initial plan to translocate Asian cheetahs from Iran having come to naught and the United Progressive Alliance leadership in 2011 deciding to look at the related species of African cheetah from South Africa, Namibia and Tanzania. Matters accelerated after the Supreme Court in 2020 cleared a pilot project to introduce the African cheetah from Namibia into India and appointed a three-member committee to oversee it. In Brief: [Conservative Party leader Liz Truss was on Tuesday formally appointed as Britain’s new Prime Minister]( by Queen Elizabeth II, becoming the third female premier of the country. Truss travelled to the 96-year-old monarch’s Balmoral Castle residence in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, to meet the Queen who formally asked her to form a new government. 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