New Delhi, April 1
Instead of going hawkish on the Supreme Court order halting the implementation of the 27 per cent reservation to OBCs in education institutions of higher learning, the centre has started serious legal consultation with its law officers to make a case for vacating the interim stay and indications are that the Prime Minister may call an all-party meeting to deliberate upon the issue.
HRD minister Arjun Singh, who had been the prime mover of extending the OBC reservation in specialised education institutions, today had detailed discussions with additional solicitor-general Gopal Subramanium on the future course of action.
He indicated that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would convene an all-party meeting to discuss the issue after the SAARC summit as the new reservation act was passed last year with a unanimous decision of all parties.
The HRD ministry was “anxious” about the OBC students who had applied for admission to IITs and IIMs as part of the three- year staggered implementation of 27 per cent quota and wanted that they were not denied admission during the coming academic session, sources said.
The 27 per cent OBC seats in central institutions have to be filled in the next three years starting with 9 per cent in the coming session and increasing the same in equal proportion by the 2009-10 session.
“Consultations are on ...the government is looking at various aspects of the matter and is anxious for an early solution,” the sources said.
A meeting of Left parties with UPA allies will take place April 5 to discuss the reservation issue, CPM leader Sitaram Yechury, who had detailed discussion with the HRD minister earlier, said.
Arjun Singh, showing unusual calm on the issue, had yesterday said the government would take all constitutional measures to get the Supreme Court stay order vacated. He was of the view that the apex court had not rejected the government’s
scheme but only asked for additional material. “The Supreme Court has not rejected anything ...we will take all constitutional measures to vacate the stay,” he had said, making it clear that the UPA government did not want any confrontation with the judiciary on the issue.
Meanwhile, the registrar-general of India (RGI) has indicated that it was not in favour of immediately going for a caste-based census.
The RGI was of the opinion that as per constitutional provisions, census could not be conducted before 10 years.
The RGI is understood to have rejected a government proposal for a caste-based census last year, when the court had questioned the centre’s figures on OBC population. It had pointed out that the last census was only done in 2001.
The centre’s problem was compounded with apathy of most of the states to provide it with a list of OBCs. Barring a few, no response had come from a majority of them, the sources said.
It was mainly because of this reason, the centre had to rely upon the Mandal Commission data, the authenticity of which was challenged for the first time in the present case by the petitioners on the grounds that in determining the OBC population at 52 per cent, the panel had only covered a minuscule 0.15 per cent of total village population and 7 per cent of district blocks which could not be described scientific.
