High Court warns of staying 10.5 pc internal reservation for Vanniyars

Hearing a batch of petitions in this regard, a division bench comprising Justice MM Sundresh and Justice S Kannammal made it clear that the government’s move in going ahead with the reservation made it fit to impose an interim stay until the cases were heard and decided.

Conceding to the submissions by the petitioners that if the cases were kept pending without any relief, it would become a fait accompli with the government implementing the internal reservation, the bench observed, “The court could pass an interim order that the implementation of the new law would be subject to the outcome of the writ petitions pending before the court.”

However, following a plea by the government counsel P Muthukumar to grant a short adjournment to enable Advocate General R Shunmugasundaram appear to argue on the petition seeking interim relief, the bench granted the government a day’s time to respond.

While the earlier government headed by AIADMK passed the rule in the Assembly ahead of the elections earlier this year, the newly elected DMK government, too, has supported the law. It had informed the court through a counter affidavit that the charges raised were baseless and there was no political motive behind the enactment of the legislation. It also claimed that there was no haste in passing the law as alleged by the petitioners.

The government also denied the contention that the law was passed even before submission of a report by a Commission constituted for this purpose. It claimed that internal reservation for Vanniakula Kshatriyas had not affected other communities, pointing out that the law categorised other MBCs and denotified communities, too, and provides 7 per cent and 2.5 per cent reservation for them.