The Union government told the Supreme Court on Monday that the previous United Progressive Alliance regime acted in public interest to include Jats on the Central list of Other Backward Classes (OBC) in nine States. The government said in an affidavit that the list was amended to include the Jat community without any motive to gain electoral benefit.
The March 4 notification amended the list with respect to Gujarat, Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan (Bharatpur and Dhaulpur districts), Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and the National Capital Territory. This notification was issued even after the National Commission for Backward Classes, in an advice to the government in February 2014, rejected the inclusion of Jats on the list. The affidavit, filed through the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, reasoned that the UPA Cabinet decided to go ahead with the decision as it was of the “view that the commission had not adequately taken into account the ground realities”. “The advice of the commission is ‘ordinarily binding’ and the government can depart from such an advice if there are reasons for doing so,” the affidavit justified.
The affidavit was filed after the Supreme Court issued notice to the government on a PIL petition filed by OBC Reservation Raksha Samiti.
The petition alleged that the notification was issued a day before the model code of conduct came into force and was done by the party in power to garner votes.
Ram Singh, Ashok Kumar and Ashok Yadav from Delhi too have challenged the notification, saying Jats had done better than other castes.
