JANHIT ABHIYAN versus UNION OF INDIA

Citation: [2022] 14 S.C.R. 1 · Decided: 07-11-2022 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: UDAY UMESH LALIT · Disposal: Disposed off

Cited by 3 judgment(s) · cites 69 · see the full citation network in Lexace

Judgment (excerpt)

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   [2022] 14 S.C.R. 1
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JANHIT ABHIYAN
v.
UNION OF INDIA
(Writ Petition (Civil) No. 55 of 2019)
NOVEMBER 07, 2022
[UDAY UMESH LALIT, CJI, DINESH MAHESHWARI,
S. RAVINDRA BHAT, BELA M. TRIVEDI AND
J.B. PARDIWALA, JJ.]
Constitution (One Hundred and Third Amendment) Act, 2019
– Challenge to – Vide said amendment, Arts. 15 and 16 of the
Constitution were amended by adding two new clauses viz., clause
(6) to Art.15 with Explanation and clause (6) to Art.16; and thereby,
the State was empowered, inter alia, to provide for a maximum of ten
per cent reservation for “the economically weaker sections” (EWS)
of citizens other than “the Scheduled Castes”, “the Scheduled
Tribes” and the non-creamy layer of “the Other Backward Classes”
– The amendment did not mandate but enabled reservation for EWS
and prescribed a ceiling limit of ten per cent – Challenge to said
amendment essentially on three-fold grounds: first, that making of
special provisions including reservation in education and employment
on the basis of economic criteria is entirely impermissible and offends
the basic structure of the Constitution; second, that in any case,
exclusion of socially and educationally backward classes i.e., SCs,
STs and non-creamy layer OBCs from the benefit of the special
provisions for EWS is inexplicably discriminatory and destroys the
basic structure of the Constitution; and third, that providing for ten
per cent additional reservation directly breaches the fifty per cent
ceiling of reservations already settled by decisions of Supreme Court
and hence, results in unacceptable abrogation of the Equality Code
which, again, destroys the basic structure of the Constitution –
Constitution (One Hundred and Third Amendment) Act, 2019 –
Validity of – Held (per 3:2 majority) (Majority opinion contained in
separate judgments rendered by Dinesh Maheshwari, Bela M.
Trivedi and J.B. Pardiwala, JJ.) : Valid – Held (per Dinesh
Maheshwari, J.): Reservation is an instrument of affirmative action
by the State so as to ensure all-inclusive march towards the goals of
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SUPREME COURT REPORTS
[2022] 14 S.C.R.
an egalitarian society while counteracting inequalities; it is an
instrument not only for inclusion of socially and educationally
backward classes to the mainstream of society but, also for inclusion
of any class or section so disadvantaged as to be answering the
description of a weaker section – In this background, reservation
structured singularly on economic criteria does not violate any
essential feature of the Constitution and does not cause any damage
to the basic structure of the Constitution – Exclusion of the classes
covered by Arts.15(4), 15(5) and 16(4) from getting the benefit of
reservation as economically weaker sections, being in the nature of
balancing the requirements of non-discrimination and compensatory
discrimination, does not violate Equality Code and does not in any
manner cause damage to the basic structure of the Constitution –
Reservation for economically weaker sections of citizens up to ten
per cent in addition to the existing reservations does not result in
violation of any essential feature of the Constitution and does not
cause any damage to the basic structure of the Constitution on
account of breach of the ceiling limit of fifty per cent because, that
ceiling limit itself is not inflexible and in any case, applies only to
reservations envisaged by Arts.15(4), 15(5) and 16(4) of the
Constitution – The 103rd Constitution Amendment cannot be said to
breach the basic structure of the Constitution by permitting the State
to make special provisions, including reservation, based on
economic criteria or by permitting the State to make special provisions
in relation to admission to private unaided institutions or in excluding
the SEBCs/OBCs/SCs/STs from the scope of EWS reservation – Held
(per Bela M. Trivedi, J.) (Concurring with Dinesh Maheshwari, J.):
The impugned amendment enabling the State to make special
provisions for the “economically weaker sections” of the citizens
other than the scheduled castes/schedules tribes and socially and
educationally backward classes of citizens, is required to be treated
as an affirmative action on the part of the Parliament for the benefit
and for advancement of the economically weaker sections of the
citizens – Treating economically weaker sections of the citizens as a
separate class would be a reasonable classification, and cannot be
termed as an unreasonable

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