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New Delhi: Affirmative action in government-run institutes of higher learning was yesterday extended to India's other backward classes (OBCs) with the Supreme Court upholding 27 per cent quota for the community, but clarifying that the creamy layer, or the elite, would be kept out.
The first to be impacted by the crucial judgment were the 1,500 students getting ready for the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) in the country.
Within hours of the verdict coming in, the six IIMs decided to defer admission of fresh batches and wait for the central government directive on 27 per cent reservation for OBCs.
Once implemented, the new policy would take overall reservation in government-funded higher education institutions like the IIMs and Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) from the current 22.5 (for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) to 49.5 per cent.
"We were going to announce the list of fresh batches within two days. But after the reservation development we are putting the exercise on hold," IIM-Lucknow director Devi Singh said.
New batches
"I had an interaction with the director of IIM-Ahmedabad and the decision to defer the admission process for the new batches is unanimous," Devi Singh said.
The judgment was delivered by a bench, headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, which upheld the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006, passed by parliament.
The bench, including Justices Arijit Pasayat, C.K. Thakkar, R.V. Raveendran and Dalveer Bhandari, also sought a time-bound review every five years of the effect of the law on the society.
The creamy layers among the OBCs that would not be eligible for the quota includes sons and wards of serving as well as former presidents, vice president, prime ministers, ministers, chief ministers, judges of the superior judiciary, bureaucrats and commissioned military officers.
As consternation spread in campuses all over the country, Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh said yesterday that the verdict would not affect "any other category of students".
The minister assured the students that the percentage of seats would be increased in institutions like the IIT and IIM.
"It is a historic judgement. Thousands of OBC students will benefit. The government has already decided that it will not affect any other category of students," he told reporters.
Reiterating the government stance, he said: "There won't be any clash of interests. No one will be excluded."
The assurances seemed to work and the protests that were expected did not materialise with students and managements saying that they would prefer to wait and watch.
Political parties welcomed the court verdict, but some were upset that the creamy layer had been left out of the benefit.
While the Congress hailed the ruling in its entirety, its allies like the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) as well as smaller Left parties were opposed to the exclusion of the creamy layer.
However, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) favoured the exclusion of the affluent.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was also happy with the "landmark" judgement.
BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said the party welcomed it but "would like to study the judgment in detail and would give a studied response only then".
Level field: Worldwide action
India's Supreme Court upheld yesterday a government policy to reserve more college seats for students from lower castes, a fiercely debated affirmative action scheme intended to help flatten centuries-old social hierarchies.
The scheme is one of the world's biggest affirmative action programmes and will be enforced this academic year starting in July in some of India's most elite universities.
Here is a list of some key countries where affirmative action programmes have been implemented:
China
China allows non-Han ethnic groups (around nine per cent of the population) to be exempt from a national one-child policy, and there is a quota for minority representatives in the National Assembly, as well as other parts of government.
India
To undo the "historical inequality" of the caste system, India has certain positions reserved for previously oppressed castes in government jobs and educational institutions. There have been recent attempts to extend it to the private job market and for Muslim minorities.
Malaysia
After bloody race riots in 1969, Malaysia introduced an affirmative action policy under which public servants are almost all ethnic Malays and any investments would require Malays to control 30 per cent of equity holdings.
South Africa
The Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy is aimed at shifting more of the economy and wealth into the hands of the black majority. The financial services industry has a charter pledging it will be 25 percent black-owned by 2010, of which 10 per cent has to be direct ownership, the other 15 per cent can be direct or indirect.
United states
To correct the legacy of centuries of black slavery followed by systematic discrimination, the United States launched race quotas in the 1960s for university entrance and employment. Some states have rolled back these rules in line with Supreme Court decisions weakening the relevant laws.
- Reuters
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