New Delhi: The decision to create additional seats in central educational institutions and to keep them exclusively for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) does not violate the Constitution, the Centre said in the Supreme Court in its counter to the petitions challenging the quota law.

The petitioners assailed the law saying it violated Article 29 (2) of the Constitution, which says, "No citizen shall be denied admission into any educational institution maintained by the State or receiving aid out of State funds on the grounds only of religion, race, caste, language or any of them." It argued that "every citizen is expected to derive the benefit of increased seats. The moment taxpayers' money is spent for creation of infrastructure in an educational institution and seats are increased thereby, you can't differentiate on the basis of caste, community or religion."

The counter said, "It is denied that a specific non-exclusion of operation of Article 29 (2) as a restraint in Article 15 (5) makes it inconsistent with Article 29 (2), as the provision logically needs to be read in conjunction with the provision in Article 15 (4), which specifically mentions exclusion of the restraint of Article 29 (2)."

Article 15 (4) says, "Nothing in this Article or in Article 29 (2) shall prevent the State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes."

The Centre said, "The identity of the `equality clause' is not only kept intact, but is further strengthened and given meaningful content."

On the OBC lists, it said they were prepared after due enquiry and investigation, and had stood the test of time and judicial scrutiny in the Indra Sawhney (Mandal) case. The Centre also justified excluding minority institutions from the purview of the 27 per cent OBC quota, saying, "It is done in accordance with the provisions of Article 30 of the Constitution and also in consonance with the Supreme Court judgment in the T.M.A. Pai case."

RJD moves court

In a related development, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) filed an application seeking to implead itself in the case in support of the Centre.

It said the object of the 93rd amendment was to promote the educational advancement of the OBCs, the SCs and the STs in matters of admission of students belonging to these categories in educational institutions, including unaided ones, other than minority institutions.

On the petitioners' contention of inadequate data, the application said, "All the issues raised in the petitions, including the validity of the policy of reservation, the absence of valid/accurate criteria for identification of the Backward Classes and the issue of basic structure, have been dealt with by the apex court in the Mandal case," and could not be allowed to be reopened. It sought dismissal of the petitions.

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