Recently, a review petition has been filed by the All India Backward Classes Federation (AIBCF) in the Supreme Court against the majority judgement upholding the validity of the 103rd Constitutional Amendment which introduced reservation to Economically Weaker Sections (EWS).

“The majority decisions rest on the mistaken assumption that EWS was structured solely on economic criteria. The review petitioner states that an economically weaker section eligible for EWS is formed by two criteria. a) family income and other indicators of economic disadvantage and b) it shall not be OBC, SC or ST,” the petition reads.

If EWS were to be based solely on economic criteria, it should be available to all those disadvantaged in terms of applicable economic criteria (family income and other indicators of economic disadvantage) with priority going to those more disadvantaged. Per contra, it is available only to sections with forward class characteristics, the petition further states.

The petition refers to the majority decision as one that erroneously assumed that EWS was for an anonymous deprived group of people without a social identity that is in dire poverty and needs reservation for their upliftment from deprivation.

“EWS is a reservation for upper caste/forward classes, with a creamy layer exclusion. It is social/caste reservation, not solely economic reservation,” the petition submits.

The petition also claims that the majority decision without any justification in law and in violation of the basic structure divides the population of India for purposes of reservation into mutually exclusive compartments. This approach of treating the eligibility categories as mutually exclusive compartments is fundamentally destructive of the basic structure principle of fraternity.

Earlier this month, DMK had also filed a review petition against the judgement.