Reservation of constituencies should continue till Scheduled Caste candidates are fielded and win in general constituencies: Madras High Court

The Madras High Court on Wednesday favoured the continuation of reservations of constituencies for electoral candidates from the Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) community while observing that they are not extended as many opportunities to become MLAs in general constituencies (M Chandramohan v The Secretary, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs)..Political parties often only do lip-service to the community, although they claim to be guardians, the Court said .The Bench of Justices N Kirubakaran and B Pugalendhi made the observation while dealing with a petition for de-reserving the Vasudevanallur Legislative Assembly constituency, from where only Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates can presently contest the Legislative Assembly elections..The Court dismissed the plea on finding that reservation cannot be challenged in a court of law. The Court found that in view of the provisions under the Delimitation Act, 2002, this constituency would remain reserved till the next delimitation exercise, which is due to be taken up after the first census to be taken after the year 2026..The Vasudevanallur constituency has the highest percentage (26.20%) of the reserved caste population in the Tirunelveli district, the Court further noted. In this backdrop, the Bench opined that opportunities should be given for an SC member to be selected as the constituency's representative.."When highest percentage of Scheduled Caste (SC) population is available in the constituency, opportunity should be given to the Scheduled Caste(SC) candidates to get selected as Member of Legislative Assembly or Member of Parliament from those constituencies, where they have got more population", the order said. .The Bench went on to explain why it favours the continuation of such reservation. ."It is a disgusting fact that Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates are mostly not successful if they are fielded as candidates in the general constituency. Though the political parties do lip service claiming themselves as the guardians of Scheduled Caste (SC), they lack moral courage to put up Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates in the general constituency. Unless even in the general constituencies Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates are put up as candidates of political parties and win the election, reservation of constituencies for Scheduled Castes (SC) should continue," it said..All the same, the Bench suggested that reservation of constituencies may be done on a rotation basis to minimise complaints of persons from other communities over not getting opportunities to contest the elections.."... By having rotation, the scheduled caste(SC) candidates in other constituencies will also have the scheduled caste(SC) representatives in legislature. If they are elected from other constituencies on rotation basis, keeping one constituency as reserved constituency for a long time would be dispensed....the same number of representatives could be maintained so that the rights of the Scheduled caste population are not violated... If this kind of rotation is followed, definitely, there will not be any complaints of violation by any other section of people," the Court said..The Court also asked the State authorities to give their response on this aspect. .In this regard, the Bench has asked: "Why not the constituency with next highest population of Scheduled Caste (SC) population be made as reserved constituency by rotation without decreasing the constituency meant for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes?".A broader issue of the need to curb the freebie culture in Tamil Nadu politics also drew the attention of the Court. The Court kept the case pending to examine the government's response on this issue as well. On these aspects, the Court will hear the matter next on April 26. .Advocate V Raju Rufus appeared for the petitioner. .Assistant Solicitor General Victora Gowri accepted notice in the matter for the Union Ministries of Parliamentary Affairs and Social Justice and Empowerment. Advocate Niranjan Rajagopal accepted notice on behalf of the Election Commission of India. .Special Government Pleader, Muthu Geetheiyan took notice for the Tamil Nadu Election Commission, whereas Additional Advocate General Chella Pandian took notice for the Tirunelveli District Collectorate. .[Read the Order]