Quota: How 7-judge bench overturned 11-judge bench

How can an option suggested by an 11-judge bench of the Supreme Court be forbidden by a 7-judge bench? This question is at the heart of the ...

How can an option suggested by an 11-judge bench of the Supreme Court be forbidden by a 7-judge bench? This question is at the heart of the controversy over the August 12 verdict delivered by the 7-judge bench banning state quotas and reservation for backward classes in unaided professional colleges.

The judgment in P A Inamdar vs State of Maharashtra will, with effect from the next academic year, overturn the system set up in the wake of the 2002 verdict of the 11-judge bench in T M A Pai Foundation vs State of Karnataka.

The current system of admissions in unaided colleges, based on the Pai ruling, is a combination of state quota and managerial discretion with reservations for backward classes being part of the state quota.

But, while interpreting the Pai verdict, the smaller bench deciding the Inamdar case held that this combination of state quota and managerial quota can continue if and only if private institutions ‘‘voluntarily’’ agree to such seat sharing with the Government.

The 7-judge bench has in effect ruled that the option of seat sharing envisaged by the 11-judge bench can remain in force only in the unlikely event of ‘‘consensual arrangements’’ between the private colleges and the state.

‘‘Nowhere in Pai Foundation,’’ the 7-judge bench said, ‘‘either in the majority or in the minority opinion, have we found any justification for imposing seat sharing quota by the state on unaided private professional educational institutions and reservation policy of the state or state quota seats or management seats.’’

But this radically different approach of quota-only-by-choice flies in the face of the Pai case’s ‘‘prescription’’ that each state must fix percentages ‘‘according to the local needs’’ and to ‘‘take care of poorer and backward sections of the society.’’

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On the issue of ‘‘needy and backward sections,’’ the 7-judge bench said: . ‘‘There are also observations (in the Pai ruling) saying that they (private colleges) may frame their own policy to give freeships and scholarships to the needy and poor students or adopt a policy in line with the reservation policy of the state…’’

The bench suggested that the revenue collected from the 15% NRI quota ‘‘should be utilized for benefiting students from economically weaker sections of the society…’’