The Supreme Court on Friday has issued a notice in a plea seeking the quashing of the Tamil Nadu special reservation of seats in educational institutions including private institutions and of appointments or posts in the services under the State within the reservation for the Most Backward Classes and Denotified Communities Act, 2021.
A divisional bench of Justice L. Nageswara Rao and Justice Vineet Saran heard the petition alleging that the petitioner’s fundamental rights under Article 14 (Equality before law), 15 (discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste sex or place of birth), 16 (Equality of Opportunity in matters of public employment and 21 (Protection of life and personal liberty) provided in the Constitution of India is being violated.
The petition has been filed by P. Abish Kumar, a B.A. (economics) student belonging to the Piramalai Kallar Tribe, who has alleged that the fair opportunity to be selected has been snatched away illegally by providing 10.5% exclusive reservations for one caste, Vanniyars, at the cost of the petitioner’s community and other 114 communities within MBC category in Tamil Nadu.
The plea has stated that the Piramalai Kallar Tribe is recognized as aboriginal tribes through gene marker M130Y and one of the denotified tribes of Tamil Nadu, which was originally treated as depressed class as these communities throughout India were subjected to extreme brutality and deprivation of basic civil rights for decades, from 1951 as Backward Class and from 1989 as Most Backward Class.
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The plea has contended that the Act has been passed without legislative competence of the Tamil Nadu State Government as after 102 Constitutional Amendment Act 2018 as held by the Supreme Court in Maratha reservation case, the states are denuded with the power to notify the socially and educationally backward classes.