Political Drama on OBC Quota

It's an irony to see the UPA government running from pillar to post to grant 27 percent reservation to the Other Backward Community (OBC). The government suffered a deadly blow to its policy of caste-based reservation in educational institutions when the apex court rejected its plea to vacate the stay on the implementation of 27 per cent quota for OBCs in central educational institutions, including IITs and IIMs from the next academic year.

The court clearly stated that its March 29 stay on the OBCs reservation was ‘final’ for the academic year 2007-08. The Bench headed by Justice Arijit Pasayat observed, "You have waited for 57 years. Why can't you wait for one more year,"when the Solicitor General tried to impress upon it by arguing that the Government has increased the number of seats to ensure that the interest of general category candidates was not adversely affected. “We don’t want that we play the game first and then frame the rules. We want rules first, then the game,”stated the Bench.

In response to the judgement, the Central Government hurriedly approached the Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan for an early hearing of the case, which was slated for August. Now it will be held on 08 May.