SC to examine petition demanding full implementation of 27% OBC reservation in MP. Petitioners say law passed in 2019 is being ignored despite no legal stay.
New Delhi: Today, on June 20, the Supreme Court on Friday agreed to urgently take up a petition filed by members of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) community from Madhya Pradesh, demanding the implementation of the 27% reservation in government jobs and education.
This reservation increase was passed as a law by the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly in 2019 but has not been fully enforced yet.
A vacation bench comprising Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Manmohan took note of the matter and said the plea will be listed for hearing next week.
The petitioners belong to the OBC community in Madhya Pradesh and have approached the top court seeking implementation of a law passed in 2019 that raised the OBC reservation from 14% to 27%.
They allege that the state government has not been applying this law properly and is instead continuing to provide only 14% reservation to OBCs, despite the law being in place.
The petition highlights that the state government has cited a legal issue to justify this non-implementation. The government says the increased quota cannot be applied due to a stay granted by the Madhya Pradesh High Court in 2019.
This stay was related to a plea filed by an MBBS student against the implementation of the 27% quota in postgraduate medical entrance exams.
An ordinance was first brought by the then Congress-led Madhya Pradesh government on March 8, 2019, to raise the OBC quota from 14% to 27% in educational institutions and government jobs. However, this ordinance was challenged in court.
Following this, on March 19, 2019, the Madhya Pradesh High Court issued a stay order preventing the implementation of the increased quota, specifically in relation to medical entrance exams.
Despite this, the state assembly later passed a formal law in July 2019 to replace the ordinance and enforce the 27% quota.
The petitioners argue that even after this law was passed, the state government is not implementing it properly across various government recruitment and admission processes.
They further point out that this law has not been struck down or declared invalid by any court.
The plea states:
“It is respectfully submitted that the said legislation has neither been struck down nor declared unconstitutional by any court of law. In fact, no interim order has been passed by this court or High Court of Madhya Pradesh for restraining the enforcement of the law.”
The petitioners also claim that the government is acting arbitrarily by not enforcing the law and is instead relying on a legal opinion provided by the Advocate General’s office to delay or stop its implementation.
the plea says,
“The enforcement of the law is restrained only on the basis of legal opinion of the office of Advocate General of Madhya Pradesh by the executive and pending litigation before court.”
The petition also adds that under the law, there is a
“presumption of constitutionality in laws passed by the state assembly”,
and until a court declares otherwise, the law must be implemented.
As per the current facts presented in court, Madhya Pradesh has a population of about 50% OBCs. But, due to the legal complications, they are still getting only 14% reservation.
The enhanced 27% OBC quota, when added to the existing quotas for Scheduled Castes (16%) and Scheduled Tribes (20%), raises the total reservation to 63%, which crosses the Supreme Court’s earlier limit of 50% total reservation.
To manage the situation temporarily, the Madhya Pradesh government had introduced a formula allowing recruitment and admission processes to continue using an 87:13 method.
In this method, 87% of the seats follow the existing reservation rules, while the disputed 13% OBC quota is kept aside until the court gives a final decision.
In 2024, all pending cases related to this OBC quota hike—almost 70 petitions—were transferred from the Madhya Pradesh High Court to the Supreme Court.
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