The Patna High Court clarified in a detailed 87-page order that it does not see any circumstances that enable the state to violate the 50 percent limit of the reservation set by the Supreme Court in the Indira Sahni case. The Patna High Court's decision to deny the reservation legislation change has been appealed by the Bihar government in the Supreme Court. Under the amended law, the Nitish Kumar-led state government had made a provision to increase the reservation for Dalits, tribals, and backward classes from 50 percent to 65 percent. The High Court had said in its decision of June 20 that the amendments unanimously passed by the state legislature in November last year are contrary to the Constitution and violate the (fundamental) right to equality.
“The state's petition has been filed in the Supreme Court through advocate Manish Kumar. A bench of the High Court has allowed several petitions challenging the Reservation in Vacancies in Government Jobs in Bihar (for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes) the Bihar (in Admission to Educational Institutions) Reservation (Amendment) Act, 2023; both acts enacted in 2023. In a detailed 87-page order, the Patna High Court clarified that it does not see any circumstances that enable the state to violate the 50 percent reservation limit set through the Supreme Court in the matter of Indira Sawhney.”
The High Court said that the state took the step (of giving reservation) on the basis of the proportion of their population rather than the numerical representation of various categories in government jobs and educational institutions. These amendments were made after the caste survey, in which the share of Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) was stated to be 63 percent of the total population of the state, while the share of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes was stated to be more than 21 percent. The Bihar government started the exercise of caste survey when the Center expressed its inability to conduct a census of castes other than Scheduled Castes and Tribes.
