The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday dismissed the review petition filed by the Central Government challenging the scrapping of the Jat quota.
The Government had approached the SC in April this year to seek a review of its March 17, 2015, decision to declare constitutionally invalid the decision to provide reservation benefits to Jats under the Other Backward Class (OBC) quota.
The judgement revealed how the notification offering Jats reservation in nine States was issued by the previous dispensation just a day prior to the announcement of the General Elections.
The SC felt there was no ground to accommodate Jats under OBC quota due to their predominant representation in Government jobs.
The Bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Rohington Nariman dismissed the Centre’s review petition after hearing it in chambers. Earlier in the day, the Court dismissed a petition by a group of Jat candidates who were selected for appointment by State Bank of India but lost jobs pursuant to the SC decision. The bench made it clear that the decision to grant Jats reservation under OBC category was bad from inception.
The judgement was a critique of the reservation policy as it held that possible wrong inclusions in the past cannot be a ground to make further mistakes. A time had come when reservation must go for deserving sections of the population which necessarily need not be caste-driven, as in the case of the SC decision to provide reservation in public employment to transgender.