Three SC verdicts back Telangana’s 50% reservation cap under Backward Classes quota

Telangana will introduce a bill in March to increase reservations for backward classes from 25% to 42%, a senior member of the ruling Congress party said. The state’s overall reservation in public employment, public education and local bodies would then rise to 62%. The “Kamareddy Declaration”, signed by current Chief Minister Revanth Reddy ahead of the 2023 elections, had promised this increase in reservations.

The Bihar government faced the same problem last year when it tried to increase its overall quota, and so even if the Bill passes, it will probably face the same problem. The Patna High Court struck down the law in July 2024, citing the Supreme Court’s 1992 ruling that fixed a 50% reservation cap.

This concept of “equality of opportunity” given by Dr. B R Ambedkar during the Constituent Assembly Debate, where from theArticle 16 came from in our constitution. Article 16 empowers the States to reserve “appointments or posts in favour of any backward class of citizens” who are not adequately represented in the public services.

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Dr. Ambedkar put to the house a hypothetical question: Suppose seventy per cent of the posts in public employment were reserved, and the remaining thirty per cent were open. “It cannot be, in my opinion, ” he replied immediately to his own question. “Therefore the seats to be reserved... must be confined to a minority of seats, ” he said.

By saying that reservations should be limited to “a minority of seats”, Dr Ambedkar was paving the way for the Supreme Court to impose a 50% ceiling.

States have consistently tried to offer more than the 50% cap, but have failed to do so often after the courts have stepped in.

Violating the 50% ceiling was confirmed in the Supreme Court’s 2021 judgment striking down Maharashtra’s Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Act, 2018, which granted reservations to the Maratha community. Among other reasons for invalidating the Act, Justice Ashok Bhushan held that the 50% cap had become law and that there were no “exceptional circumstances” in any of the material before him to justify a violation.