The Supreme Court maintained the constitutional legality of an OBC quota in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test's (NEET) All India Quota seats for undergraduate and postgraduate medical and dentistry courses.
About the Quota
The ruling was issued in response to a petition contesting the central government's introduction of OBC and EWS reservations in state government medical schools through the AllIndia Quota (AIQ) system.
Article 15 (4) and (5) of the Constitution give the government the power to make reservations, but they are not a "exception" to Article 15 (1), which states that "the State shall not discriminate against any citizen solely on the basis of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth, or any of them."
The court concluded that the government's power to create OBC reservations bolstered the concept of "substantive equality" enshrined in Article 15 of the Constitution.
Arguments in Favour of it:
Reservation ensure that opportunities are distributed: in such a way that the lower classes can equally benefit from the opportunities that structural barriers usually deny them.
To negate cultural capital: Cultural capital ensures that senior children are unknowingly raised by the family environment receiving higher or higher education that corresponds to the status of the family. This is detrimental to disadvantaged people who are first generation learners and come from communities where they practice traditional professions.
Helped many, if not all: Affirmative action has grown many of the underprivileged and undervalued communities in the world's major industries.
Social Justice: They are necessary to bring social justice to the most limited and disadvantaged, human rights.
Counters the negatives of open competition: Open competition testing only guarantees formal equality and does not end widespread and deep-seated inequalit
Arguments against reservation:
Against Performance: By providing reservations through relaxed admission standards, it promotes moderately qualified inflation rather than promoting the performance oriented education system that underlies many developed countries.
Violates equality principle: Quota allocation is a form of discrimination that violates the right to equality.
No review: Reservation policy has never been subjected to a widespread societal or political review.
Caste based reservation is wrong: Poor people from the "advanced castes" have no social or economic advantages over those from the "backward caste"
Fear of perpetuity: Due to political difficulties, there is a fear that once reservation is implemented, it will never be removed, even if there is proof of upliftment of backward classes.
Way Forward:
Review: Reservation system needs to be reviewed on periodic basis and caste which has advanced should be taken out of it.
Non on Populist basis: Reservation shall never be extended on the populist basis and should be after thorough analysis.
Sticking to limit: Reservation shouldn’t cross the 50% limit set by the supreme court in the Indra Shawney judgement.
