Setback to RJD on 65 percent reservation in Bihar, Supreme Court refuses to stay HC order

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday (September 6) issued notice to the Center and Bihar government on a petition challenging the Patna High Court’s decision to increase reservation in Bihar to 65%. However, the Supreme Court has not stayed it. In fact, the main opposition party in Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal, had approached the Supreme Court against the Bihar High Court’s decision to increase the reservation, for which the law was passed after the caste survey last year.

According to the report, on Friday (September 6), a bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Mishra in the Supreme Court issued notices to the Bihar government and the Center. In which the petition filed by RJD was included with the pending appeal of the state government.

After the petitioners challenged the constitutional validity of the amendments, the High Court ruled on June 20 that these amendments are a “violation of the provision of equality outside the right” of the Constitution. To this, the bench said that it did not see any circumstances enabling the state to violate the 50% limit on reservation set by the Supreme Court in the 1992 Indra Sawhney case. The Bihar government had also approached the Supreme Court against the High Court order and in July a bench refused to stay it.

Reacting to the developments in the Supreme Court, the RJD said that it would continue to fight for reservation and the “rights of the deprived”. RJD wrote in a post on X, “Supreme Court issued notice on RJD’s petition against Patna High Court’s order to cancel Bihar Reservation Amendment Act. RJD will continue to fight for reservation and the rights of the deprived and neglected on the streets, in the House and in the courts.

Along with this, the Rashtriya Janata Dal targeted Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and BJP. CM Nitish Kumar, who has 43 seats, kept pampering BJP sitting in the lap of RSS, but we will continue to fight our ideological battle for the backward-Dalits-Adivasis face to face.

Let us tell you that through amendment in the reservation law, the quota for backward classes, extremely backward classes, Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) has been increased from 50% to 65%. The bills proposing these amendments were passed unanimously in the Bihar Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council. At the same time, the increase in reservation was meant to be applicable to educational institutions in the state as well as government jobs.

In fact, the Bihar caste survey has revealed that 36 percent of Bihar’s population is extremely backward. 27.1 per cent are from backward castes, 19.7 per cent are from scheduled castes and 1.7 per cent are from scheduled tribes. The share of the general category, including the so-called upper castes, is 15.5 per cent. After this, Bihar Reservation of Vacancies in Posts and Services (for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes) Amendment Act, 2023 and Bihar (Admission in Educational Institutions) Reservation (Amendment) Act, 2023 were brought to increase the reservation in the state to 65%.