Supreme Court says SC/STs can get quota in home state only
On Thursday, a constitutional bench of the Supreme court issued a statement. The Supreme Court says that the scheduled castes or scheduled tribes can avail the benefits of reservation in government jobs. But that should be in their home state only. They can’t access quotas in other states where they have migrated.
The Supreme Court is upholding the “son of soil” principle. The bench claims if a person’s status migrates with him, it will result in the deprivation of the rights of the scheduled castes and tribes of the host state.
The constitutional bench issued this order after reviewing the earlier verdicts given the supreme court in its decisions.
The Delhi High Court itself has referred the matter of reservation in subordinate services. This decision has been taken under Article 134A of the Constitution for the authoritative adjudication on the issue.
A five-judge bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi, N V Ramana, R Banumathi, M M Shantanogoudar and S Abdul Nazeer noted on Thursday that a particular community is recognized as SC or ST in relation to a state. Moreover, the concept would become “nugatory”(of no value) if migrants from other states are in its ambit.
“Unhesitatingly, therefore, it can be said that a person belonging to a scheduled caste in one state cannot be deemed to be a scheduled caste person in relation to any other state to which he migrates for the purpose of employment or education ” the court stated.
The Supreme Court focussed on the expressions ‘in relation to the state or Union Territory’ and ‘for the purposes of this Constitution’ that were used in Articles 341 and 342, respectively. This means that the benefits of reservation would be within the geographical territories of a state or Union Territory.
Will this Supreme Court decision truly benefit the Scheduled Caste or Tribe of the host states? What do you think?
