The Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday defended the Vanniyar quota law in the Supreme Court, saying the State is the front runner in social justice.
Appearing before a Bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao and B.R. Gavai, senior advocate P. Wilson said Tamil Nadu has a "history of granting reservation traceable to the year 1854 onwards, including the caste census being taken in 1872".
The State has challenged a Madras High Court decision to quash a State law that granted internal reservation at 10.5% to Vanniyakula Kshatriya and 7% and 2.5% to other communities within Most Backward Classes.
Tamil Nadu, also represented by State counsel D. Kumanan, has argued that the High Court’s decision to quash the law was based on the ground that the State has no legislative competence and the special reservation was provided with caste as basis and without quantifiable data.
"The Most Backward Classes within the Backward Classes were identified in Tamil Nadu as early as in 1957, when they were considered equivalent to Scheduled Castes but without the factor of untouchability," the State's petition explained.
It said some of these communities were impacted by the criminal tribes' laws of the British and enlisted as Most Backward Classes.
1983 survey
The recommendation for 10.5% reservation to the Vanniyakula Kshatriya was made in commensuration with their population as enumerated in a survey held in 1983 by the Tamil Nadu Second Backward Classes Commission.
"The State had enacted the Act in 2021 only based on adequate authenticated data on population of the Most Backward Classes and Denotified Communities enumerated by the Tamil Nadu Second Backward Classes Commission in 1983," the government contended.
Tamil Nadu said the caste-wise population data disclosed by the Commission was the "only authenticated data available as of now before the State; and such data can be used effectively to plan for sub-classification within backward classes of citizens".
“Totally brushing aside such an authentic survey just for the insignificant observations in the note of dissenting members of that Commission on the population enumerated on few of the communities in the order [of the High Court] cannot be sustained,” the State’s petition said.
It said the High Court had decided to focus on these observations rather than the "stupendous" exercise conducted for two years by the Commission and the State for enumeration of the data.
