Plea questions sub-quota for Arunthathiyars

CHENNAI: The legality of Tamil Nadu government's three-year-old reservation policy of providing 3% sub-quota for the Arunthathiyars within the 18% reservation for scheduled castes has been challenged in the Madras high court.

The first bench comprising Chief Justice M Y Eqbal and Justice T S Sivagnanam, before whom the PIL filed by Dr K Krishnasamy of the Puthiya Tamizhagam party came up for admission on Thursday, has issued notices to the state government.

In his petition, Krishnasamy submitted that the then government had prescribed the sub-quota for Arunthathiyar, ignoring the fact that the scheduled castes form a homogenous group for the purpose of reservation and it was beyond the state government's legislative competence to prescribe a special reservation for one group within the SC category.

Noting that the SC population as a whole is still marginalised and suffered ostracization, Krishnasamy said that in 2008 the then government had accepted a one-man commission's report recommending a special recommendation for Arunthathiyars. The one-man committee has no jurisdiction or authority to decide such issues, he said adding that it amounted to discrimination among the castes listed in the presidential order.

He said the state government had not held discussions with the National Commission for Scheduled Castes on the matter. Also, the state cannot cull out some scheduled castes from the presidential list for providing special reservation.

[Courtesy: TOI, August 17, 2012]