A political battle has erupted over the Supreme Court’s verdict that declared that states were not legally bound to provide reservations in jobs to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The verdict also declared that individuals have no fundamental right to claim reservations in promotions.
“There is no doubt that the state government is not bound to make reservations. There is no fundamental right which inheres in an individual to claim reservation in promotions. No mandamus can be issued by the court directing the state government to provide reservations,” said a bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and Hemant Gupta on Friday.
“There is no doubt the state government is not bound to make reservations. There is no fundamental right which inheres in an individual to claim reservation in promotions. No mandamus can be issued by the court directing state governments to provide reservations,” the bench said.
The Supreme Court announced the verdict in a case related to the Uttarakhand Government’s decision in 2012 to not provide reservations in promotions. It was the Congress party which was in power at the time. The Uttarakhand High Court had eventually struck down the notification.
The same was said by the Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thaawar Chand Gehlot in the Lok Sabha on Monday. “The case arose due to Uttarakhand Government’s 2012 decision to not implement reservation in promotions, in the state. In 2012 Congress was in power in Uttarakhand,” he said. Gehlot also made it clear that the Government of India was never a party to the case.
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However, when the Union Minister reminded the Congress party that the Supreme Court was upholding a decision taken by their own party when in power, the elected representatives of the party staged a walkout from the Lower House of the Parliament. Even more amusingly, Kapil Sibal had appeared in Court for people seeking promotion against the decision taken by a Congress government. The Congress party is also planning to launch country-wide agitations against the BJP for a decision taken by the Congress government in Uttarakhand in 2012.
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Rahul Gandhi, the former president of the Congress party, said, “BJP & RSS’s ideology is against reservations. They never want SC/STs to progress. They’re breaking the institutional structure. I want to tell SC/ST/OBC and Dalits that we’ll never let reservations come to an end no matter how much Modi Ji or Mohan Bhagwat dream of it.”
It is a perplexing series of events that have ensued and is symbolic of the desperation of the Congress party. The Congress government in Uttarakhand in 2012 decides to not provide reservations of the SC/ST communities in promotions. The Uttarakhand High Court strikes it down. Then the matter reaches the Supreme Court where Kapil Sibal, a senior leader of the Congress party, argues against a decision taken by his own party when in power. Then, the Supreme Court decides to uphold the decision taken by the Congress government. And the Congress party blames the BJP for the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the decision taken by its own government in Uttarakhand.
If all of this wasn’t enough, the Congress party plans to launch a nationwide agitation against the BJP because the Supreme Court decided to uphold the Congress government’s decision in Uttarakhand in 2012. Taking many leaps further, Rahul Gandhi, who was recently found having a profound intellectual conversation with a ten-year-old about how the country has changed since she was five years old, says that the Congress party will never let reservations come to an end despite the fact that he was commenting against a Supreme Court’s verdict that upheld a decision taken by a Congress government. If the Congress party wasn’t so hell-bent in spreading anarchy across the country, then all of this would truly have been funny.