© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The Karnataka High Court on Thursday removed a stay imposed on the BJP government’s order to create new subgroups of Other Backward Classes (OBC) reservation for the dominant Lingayat and Vokkaliga castes in the state.
The removal of the stay was allowed by a division bench headed by Chief Justice P B Varale after the central government assured the court through solicitor-general Tushar Mehta that the new OBC quotas would not affect the existing 15 per cent quota for OBC groups in the 2 A Category.
The decision is likely to help the BJP government satisfy the Panchamasali subsect of Lingayats, which has been agitating for several months for its inclusion in the 2A Category. The Panchamasali agitation is seen as a potential threat to the BJP’s prospects in the May 2023 polls on account of the division of the votes of the 17 per cent of Lingayats, who have traditionally supported the saffron party.
At the end of December 2022, the state backward classes commission submitted an interim report on the status of backward castes in Karnataka to the Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government. The report was given in time for the government to meet a December 29 deadline set by Panchamasali Lingayats to take a decision on their OBC quota demand.
On January 12, 2023, the high court stayed the government’s December 29, 2022, decision to create two new categories of OBC reservation—2C and 2D—to accommodate demands made by the Panchamasali Lingayats and Vokkaligas.
The court stayed the decision following a public interest litigation petition filed by Raghavendra D G, who argued that Lingayats and subgroups of the community could not be moved to new categories of reservation as per orders of the state backward classes commission issued in 2000.
The petition says the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes Act 1995 does not have a concept of interim reports and that new categories of reservation cannot therefore be carved out on the basis of the interim report.
The commission had recently stated that it would not be in a position to submit its full report on the status of castes ahead of the 2023 polls. This was seen as a setback to the BJP’s efforts to address the Panchamasali demand for an OBC quota. The Panchamasalis have been demanding their inclusion under the OBC 2A Category to avail of the 15 per cent quota in government jobs and educational institutions.
The Bommai cabinet aimed to appease the dominant Vokkaligas and the Lingayats by identifying them under the new OBC categories (2C and 2D) and by allotting to them six per cent of the 10 per cent Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) quota created by the Centre.
The exact size of the new quotas is not clear as yet and is expected to be in the range from six to eight per cent each when it is notified by the state government in the next few days.
The move for new categories has, however, not gone down well with the Panchamasali Lingayats, who have been agitating for nearly two years for access to 15 per cent of the OBC quota. They have rejected the new quota offer made by Bommai on the basis of the interim report.
A Panchamasali seer leading the quota agitation, Jaya Mruthyunjaya Swami, indicated on Wednesday that the agitators had approached Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his intervention and that positive results were expected.
The state government has already breached the 50 per cent ceiling on reservation imposed by the Supreme Court (in the 1992 Indira Sawhney case) with a move in October 2022 to increase the SC/ST quotas by two and four per cent from 15 and three per cent respectively.
With the BJP-led Centre having already breached the 50 per cent quota ceiling through the 103rd constitutional amendment in 2019—to provide a 10 per cent EWS reservation for communities that are not socially backward, the party’s government in the state is expected to announce new quotas ahead of the 2023 polls.
Karnataka reservations as it stands now
Category I – 4% – Backward Castes
Category II (A) – 15% – Other Backward Classes
Category II (B) – 4% – Muslims
Category III (A)- 4% – Vokkaliga etc
Category III (B) – 5 % – Lingayat etc
Scheduled Castes – 17 %
Scheduled Tribe – 7 %
Total reservations – 56 %
With addition of 10 % EWS quota – 66 %
SC ceiling on reservations – 50 %
Proposed Karnataka reservations
Category I – 4% – Backward Castes
Category II (A) – 15% – Other Backward Classes
Category II (B) – 4% – Muslims
Category II (C)- 4% – Vokkaliga + redistributed 6% EWS quota
Category II (D) – 5 % – Lingayat + redistributed 6 % EWS quota
Scheduled Castes – 17 %
Scheduled Tribe – 7 %
EWS – 4 %
