SC refuses to entertain plea demanding expiry time for caste-based reservations

A bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and S Ravindra Bhat of the Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a plea by advocate Subhash Vijayran seeking directions to fix an expiry time for caste-based reservations in India. The petitioner, also an MBBS doctor, claimed that with reservation, the seat of a more meritorious candidate is given to a less meritorious one. He also alleged that caste-based reservations are directly responsible for stagnating the nation's progress.

"Now, we have well-off doctors, lawyers, engineers, who flaunt their backward tag to gain admissions in PG courses via reservations. Even the Institutions of National Importance (INIs) like AIIMS, NLUs, IITs, IIMs, etc are not spared. Every year 50 per cent of their very scarce seats are sacrificed on the altar of reservations. For how long this will continue?" the plea said. It further added that open competition amongst candidates would be an empowering exercise that would contribute to the nation's progress.

Citing the SC judgement in the Ashok Kumar Thakur case, the plea argued that a majority of judges are of the opinion that every five years a review must be held on the caste-based reservation in education. However, no such review has been held to date. The petitioner withdrew the plea after the court refused to entertain it.