On Friday, Rajasthan High Court produced an important decision declaring to struck down reservation for Gujjars by five percent. The decision also include four other castes under the category of special background (SBC). They have reached to this decision under the shades of the notion that, reservation should not be given “to achieve political goals”. The court mentioned that, ” Five castes (Gujjars, Banjaras, Gadarias, Raikas and Gadia Lohars), earlier falling in the category of OBCs and getting benefit of reservation, have been brought in the category of SBCs to provide five per cent less reservation benefit exceeding the ceiling of 50 per cent.”
They also mentioned, ” It is not that the Gujjars/Gurjars and others were having no representation either for admission in the educational institutions or in services.’’
It came into court’s notice that, the data for considering the backwardness of these five communities are not in collection to the extent, it is required. In this context, court explained, ” In those circumstances, recommendation of the SBC Commission (for reservation) can be said to be perverse,” the SBC Commission and the state government have failed to discharge their obligation as per the directions of the apex court to collect quantifiable data.’’
Court noticed many flaws in the SBC reservation and said that some exceptional cases can avail above 50 percent of reservation. As per their statement, “reservation should not be made solely based on caste’’. It came into the observation that, the reservation which cater to political goals may result in caste-based violence. ” It was recently seen in the state of Haryana where agitators disrupted normal life of the citizen.’’
The law for the grant of the reservation came into existence last year, which took the reservation in the state to 54 per cent.
On invalidation of the law, Himmat Singh (Rajasthan Gujjar Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti leader) said, ” We will agitate the same way as before”. He also mentioned that, ” There is BJP government at the Centre and in the state and we kept telling them to see to it that that the (reservation) Act is included in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution (to make it immune to judicial scrutiny). ’’
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