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The Supreme Court on Wednesday pronounced its judgment stating that the 2021 Act, the Vanniyar Reservation Act 2021 is ultra vires under the Article 14, 15, and 21 of the Constitution in the batch of petitions challenging the Madras High Court judgment which had declared the 10.5% internal reservation to the Vanniyar community under the existing 20% reservation to Most Backward Classes by the Tamil Nadu Government, unconstitutional. Court has thereby upheld the Madras High Court’s decision.

A bench of Justice L Nageswara Rao and Justice BR Gavai held that the State has committed an error in adopting the report of the Janardhanan Commission.

In addition to this the bench on the issue of determining backward classes on the basis of cast, the bench said it has already been pronounced in various judgments that the case is not the only system to determine backward classes.

Over the issue of whether the State has power to make laws over the issue, the bench observed that the State cannot be forced to take the content of the President.

Earlier, Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves appearing for the respondents in a connected matter to the Vanniyar reservation issue informed the bench that the Vanniyar Community has occupied most of the seats in the admissions of MBBS, engineering, law, and veteran sciences, and hold a dominant position amongst the backward classes.

Whereas, Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan appearing for the respondent while continuing his arguments submitted that under Article 338B a consultation has to be done with the National Commission for Backward Classes, however, the same was not done while enacting the Act providing reservation to the Vanniyar community. "You had to follow 338B, you didn't follow it, the consultation was to be done with NCBC which was not done," Sankaranarayanan said. 

In addition to this Senior Advocate Rajiv Dhavan appearing for the respondent, A Mayilerumperumal submitted that population cannot be a basis for inclusion in a specific class. 

Senior Advocate Radhakrishnan appearing for the petitioner S Ramadoss in a connected matter submitted that adverting to the impugned judgment, in the given situation, it is justifiable what the legislation has done. Equality of opportunity allows discrimination with reason.

Background:

A Madras High Court bench of Justices M. Duraisamy and Muralishankar while holding Tamil Nadu government’s law stipulating 10.5% internal reservation for Vanniyars within 20% quota allocated to Most Backward Castes (MBCs) in government jobs and educational institutions as unconstitutional has noted that it is an arbitrary micro classification.

The batch of petitions challenging the law was earlier listed before a bench of Justice MM Sundaresh (prior to his elevation to the Supreme Court) and Justice Kannamal.

The petitioners contended that after the insertion of the 102nd Amendment to the Constitution of India, the State Government has no power to identify/classify any community as Backward and it is the sole domain of the Parliament and hence, the impugned Act is in violation of the Articles 338-B and 342-A of the Constitution of India. Further, the appropriate authority to notify a caste will be the National Commission for Backward Classes which is Constitutional Body under Article 333-B of the Constitution of India, under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

It was further contended that Article 340 of the Constitution specifically provides that the President may, by order, appoint a Commission consisting of such persons as he thinks fit to investigate the conditions of Socially and educationally Backward Classes(SEBC) within the territory of India and the difficulties under which they work and make recommendations as to the steps that should be taken by the Union or any State to remove such difficulties. The State of Tamil Nadu has granted internal reservation of 10.5% out of 20% for Vanniyar Community alone. This is over 50% earmarked for MBC. In addition, the classification made on a particular premise of offering a larger slot to Vanniyars in MBC, is not in accordance with law.

Case Title: Pattali Makkal Katchi & Ors. Vs Mayileruperumal