By Garima
On Thursday , the Supreme Court its 2004 verdict that said that there is no power with the states to sub- classify the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, for giving quotas in jobs and for securing admissions to the various educational institutions, needs to be revisited.
Justice Arun Mishra , headed a Five Judges Bench said the 2004 verdict of a constitution bench in the case of E V Chinnaiah is subject to the reconsideration, thus the matter be placed before the Chief Justice of India for seeking appropriate direction regarding this.
Also other judges of the bench ,Justice Indira Banerjee, Vineet Saran, M R Shah and Aniruddha Bose, said that according to their view the 2004 verdict was not correctly decided and states have the authority to make laws to give preferential treatment by sub classifying caste within SC/STs.
The case filed by the Punjab government against the high court order before CJI Justice S A Bobde was also referred for setting up of a larger bench to revisit the earlier verdict.
The state law was struck down by Punjab and Haryana High courts for empowering the government to sub-classify SC/STs for grant of quotas.
The decision of High Court was relied upon the 2004 verdict of apex court and held that Punjab Government has no authority to undertake the exercise of sub classifying SC/STs.