Supreme Court To Take A Call On Transferring EWS Quota Case To Constitutional Bench On 28 March

A Supreme Court (SC) bench headed by chief justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi on Monday (12 March 2019) stated that it is currently not in favour of issuing an order to transfer the EWS quota case to a Constitution bench, reports Press Trust of India (PTI).

The bench, however, said that it would take up the pleas on 28 March and decide then whether the matter should be heard by a Constitution bench constituting of five or more SC judges.

The bench, consisting of Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna, also asked senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan to file a short note of the points that have been raised in the petition application. Dhavan is representing businessman and Congress supporter Tehseen Poonawalla who moved the apex court against the new EWS reservation quota.

No Stay

Earlier on 25 January (2019), a division bench comprising of CJI Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjiv Khanna had refused to stay the 103 constitutional amendment and allowed its implementation for the time being.

The amendment was recently passed by the Parliament to allow central and state governments to introduce a 10 per cent quota for economically backward sections (EWS) belonging to the general category.