Patna HC seeks counter affidavit on petitions challenging hike in quotas in Bihar

Patna: The Patna High Court on Friday asked the Bihar government to file its reply on a bunch of petitions challenging the recent hike in reservations for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Extremely Backward Classes.

A Division Bench headed by Chief Justice K Vinod Chandran asked the state government, which was represented by Advocate General P K Shahi, to file its 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.

The petitioners have contended that the legislations passed by the Bihar Assembly last month raising 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".

However, the petitioners have alleged, that the Nitish Kumar government in the state took the step "just on the ground of increased backward class population", referring to the recently held caste survey which put the combined population of OBCs and EBCs to 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".

Notably, leaders of the BJP-led NDA, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, have gone on record alleging that in the survey the numbers of Yadavs and Muslims had been "inflated", to suit the RJD which helms the state's ruling "Mahagathbandhan" and to the detriment of other backward classes.

However, RJD president Lalu Prasad's son and heir apparent Tejashwi Yadav, who is the Deputy CM, has refuted the allegations pointing out that the survey also showed the caste of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, a Kurmi, to be numerically small.

The 'Mahagathbandhan' government has also accused the BJP of being "anti-reservations", alleging its hand in petitions that put 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.

Nonetheless, the Mahagathbandhan government has passed a cabinet resolution requesting the Centre that the legislations hiking the quotas for SCs, STs, OBCs and EBCs be placed in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution, in order to protect these against protracted legal battles.