The Patna High Court on Friday (December 1) directed the Bihar government to file its response on a batch of petitions challenging the recent increase in reservations for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Extremely Backward Classes. A Division Bench led by Chief Justice K Vinod Chandran asked the Nitish Kumar government, represented by Advocate General PK Shahi, to file a counter affidavit within four weeks.
"The court bunched together the Public interest Litigations and sought a counter affidavit within four weeks", said advocate Vikas Kumar, who was assisting Shahi in the matter.
What did the petitioners say?
The petitioners have termed the legislations passed by the Bihar Assembly last month giving a hike to the quotas, in government jobs and educational institutions, to 65 per cent, in addition to 10 per cent reservations for economically weaker sections, were "unconstitutional".
The petitioners have further contended that the Supreme Court judgement in the famous Indra Sawhney case had restricted "overall reservation cap to 50 per cent which could be changed only in extremely exceptional cases".
The petitioners alleged that the Nitish Kumar government took the step “just on the ground of increased backward class population”.
The government recently held a caste survey which projected the combined population of OBCs and EBCs to be 63.13 per cent.
It is also the contention of the petitioners that the statistics of the survey seemed "politically motivated as there are whispers of the data being erroneous".
BJP slams caste survey
BJP leaders, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, have alleged that the numbers of Yadavs and Muslims had been “inflated” to suit the RJD. However, Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav dismissed the allegations stating that the caste census also showed the caste of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to be numerically small.
Political war over caste census
The Nitish Kumar government has also accused the BJP of being "anti-reservations", and alleged that it has behind the petitions that has put the hurdles in the way of reservations for EBCs in local body polls and the caste census by getting its supporters to file petitions against these.
The BJP has strongly denied the allegations, pointing out that it has supported pro-reservation moves whenever legislations relating to these were brought in the assembly and that it was sharing power when the government decided to conduct a caste survey.
(With PTI inputs)
