By Pervez Bari
New Delhi: The Social Democratic Party of India, (SDPI), has posed a pertinent question which is supreme whether the Indian Constitution is supreme or the Supreme Court of the country. In other words whether Constitution is above the Supreme Court or the Supreme Court is above the Constitution.
The above question has arisen after the Supreme Court in a decision on June 11, 2020 said that right to reservation is not a fundamental right and refused to entertain a bunch of pleas filed by various political parties against the Centre’s decision not to grant 50% reservation to OBCs as per Tamil Nadu law in medical seats surrendered by the state in the All India Quota for under graduate, post graduate and dental courses in 2020-21.
SDPI national president M. K. Faizy in a statement pointed out that the Indian Constitution Article 16(4) says: “Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any provision for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of any backward class of citizens which, in the opinion of the State, is not adequately represented in the services under the State.”
Faizy said that the Supreme Court Order uproots the most basic Constitutional Right to Equality of Status & Opportunity of every Indian Citizen. Reservations are the Constitution’s most Critical Provisions to address over thousand years of oppression of SCs, STs, BCs, OBCs, Adivasis, Tribal’s etc. Obviously 70 years is too short a period to remove the gross inequalities in Indian society. The Supreme Court has utterly failed Indian Democracy with its present unjust Order.