Reservation offsets deprivation period

Reservation offsets deprivation period

Court privileging location deeply problematic.

On August 30, a five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court answered the following question, “Whether a person belonging to a Scheduled Caste (SC) in relation to a particular state would be entitled or not, to the benefits or concessions allowed to SC candidate in the matter of employment, in any other state?” Its answer is “no, with the exception of Delhi”. This means a person classified as a SC in Bengal, say, but not on Karnataka’s list, cannot claim reservation when applying for a government job in Mysuru (but can do so in Delhi). The SC says since each state has its own list of SC and scheduled tribes (ST), granting reservations to SC and ST from other states would eat into opportunities for locals.

The judgment would appear to be deeply flawed, in replacing experienced backwardness as the factor being sought to be compensated for via reservations, with location. Admittedly, state-specific listing of scheduled castes, sub-castes and scheduled tribes throws up ambiguities. For example, Gurjars are a scheduled tribe in Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir, but an Other Backward Caste elsewhere. When a person grows up experiencing the deprivation and backwardness associated with his social and educational class, does his moving to another state remove the handicap he had experienced in his state, merely because his community’s standing in the state to which he has moved is altogether better than that in the home state? Clearly not. Then comes the question of a person from a different state taking away a job that should have gone to a local resident. This is the question that the Shiv Sena has been raising in Maharashtra, about, of course, the general population, rather than about SCs or STs.

The court’s view would resonate with the Sena and could feed demands in every locality to keep outsiders away in the quest for jobs. That would conflict with the fundamental freedom of a citizen to move freely and reside anywhere. Denying, in effect, this freedom to the beneficiaries of reservations would flout the guarantee of equality, and deem them somewhat less than full citizens. The verdict calls for a relook by another bench.