Madras high court quashes 10.5% Vanniyar quota, says Tamil Nadu law unconstitutional – Hindustan Times

The Madras high court on Monday set aside a Tamil Nadu legislation granting 10.5% reservation to the Vanniyar community within an existing 20% quota for the most backward classes (MBC) in the state, holding the law to be unconstitutional.

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A bench of justices M Duraiswamy and K Murali Shankar held that the 2021 law, passed by the previous All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) government the day state elections were announced, was illegal because of a lack of quantifiable data to measure the “extreme backwardness” of the Vanniyars.

“…The impugned enactment has been passed by the state without any quantifiable data on population, socio educational status and representation of the backward classes in the services and the sub-classification done by virtue of the impugned act solely based on population data, in the absence of any objective criteria, is illegal in the eye of law and in violation of the Constitution of India,” the court said

The court clarified that the order nullifying the reservation will not impact those who have been admitted to institutions under the quota.

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The Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), which has been demanding reservation for Vanniyars, called the order a disappointment and urged the DMK-led state government to move the Supreme Court against the high court order. Government officials said they will consider moving Supreme Court against the order.

The law carving 10.5% reservation for Vanniyar within 20% reservation for Most Backward Classes (MBCs) was notified by the previous AIADMK government on February 26, the day assembly elections were announced. When the present Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government took over in May, it issued an order to fully implement the reservation, following which 35 petitions were filed in the high court.

The petitioners, who belong to various castes in the MBC grouping, argued that the Vanniyar quota left little for the 115 other castes under the MBC umbrella. The state defended the enactment and submitted that institutions such as the Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University had implemented the reservation and added that it would not affect the prospects of other communities.

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In its 184-page order, the court said that the sub-categorisation of reservation was done on recommendation of the chairperson of a commission without any quantifiable data on backwardness of the Vanniyars within the MBCs. It also said that all other members of the commission had dissented on the reservation recommendation.

The commission headed by retired justice A Kulasekaran was constituted after PMK’s statewide protests for reservation in 2020. The commission is yet to submit its report on providing caste-wise reservation to all communities based on their population.

The reservation was provided by amending Tamil Nadu Backward Classes, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Reservation of Seats in Educational Institution and Appointments or Posts in the Services Under the State) Act 1993, which the state had enacted following a Supreme Court order to protect 69% caste-based reservation in Tamil Nadu.

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In most other states, caste-based reservation is capped at 50%.

The court said that the legislation was in violation of Articles 15, 16 and 29 of the Constitution of India as it treated one caste- Vanniayars–differently.

“By doing so, the respondents have shown discrimination between one caste having 6 sub-castes and 115 other castes, as the impugned Act tried to give higher proportion of reservation to one caste and deprive the others,” the court said.

“We also find that none of the remaining 115 communities was given separate reservation, as it has been done in the case of Vanniyar caste.”

The court added that “it is settled position of law that caste alone cannot be the basis for any classification” and the Supreme Court in the 1992 Indra Sawhney judgment made this clear.

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The court also said that the state had not taken a policy decision to modify the reservation after consulting the National Commission for Backward Classes as mandated by Article 338-B of the Indian Constitution and neither had any supporting materials been collected to prove that the Vanniyar caste was not able to compete with other extremely marginalised communities.

“There is nothing on record to establish that the state government had deliberations with all the stakeholders, especially, those communities who would be affected by the impugned act,” the court said.