The Supreme Court bench’s observation came in response to the arguments from counsel for Andhra Pradesh, that reservations by their very nature are exclusionary. We are still living in a society that identifies people and groups as caste, the Supreme Court remarked on Thursday while hearing arguments on a batch of petitions challenging the 103rd Constitution Amendment, which provides for 10% quota for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS). The observation came from the Constitution bench led by Chief Justice of India UU Lalit in response to submissions being made on behalf of the state of Andhra Pradesh. Senior Advocate Niranjan Reddy, appearing for the state, while arguing in favour of the amendment submitted that exclusion of socially and educationally backward classes already being provided reservations from the purview of the EWS quota is not unconstitutional. Reddy was responding to petitioner’s arguments that backward classes not being provided reservations under the EWS category was discriminatory. Reddy argued that reservations by their very nature are exclusionary. So the moment there’s a vertical reservation, keeping one provisioned category out of further vertical reservation is the way that the Constitution has been worked out. “So it’s the same continuing theme that today vertical EWS is being created, whoever being provisioned first will be kept out of that reservation,” Reddy said. He argued that those who have been provisioned already and are provided quotas under provisions, will not be entitled to double reservations and their exclusion would not be violative of the equality law. The bench, however, said that going by this logic, tomorrow it may be said that the open category is also only open to those who do not belong to any specified category and hence are non-reserved. The bench added that the SC’s judgment in the case of Champakam Dorairajan did not accept the idea that there can be a water tight compartment for communities, regions and sections for which there is no reservation at all. However, what was accepted as a normal notion was that where there is no reservation, anybody and everybody can compete in that. “We are still existing in a society which identifies people and groups as caste,” Justice Ravindra Bhat remarked. During the hearing, Reddy also submitted that every backward class member already provisioned under Articles 15(4) and 16(4) has individual-centric opportunity of both open seats and backward class seats, thereby exceeding their opportunity quotient. He argued that, after EWS reservations, unlike a general category candidate who is now required to cede 60% to the reserved category, the backward class member has to cede only 10%. With regard to the state’s affirmative action and 50% limit on reservations for backward classes, which leaves 50% available to the general category, he argued that the limit cannot be a rigid 50%. “This balance cannot be static when there are several moving parts. Society is so dynamic, so volatile in a nation like India, everything keeps on shifting. Then the balance also has to be shifting. It can’t be a static, rigid 50% always,” Reddy said. The senior counsel also pointed out how these EWS reservations are something being done separately, and also the only measure being taken for the depressed sections amongst the general category. “If the Parliament thinks that it intends to balance sets of competing values and interests in this manner, is it so unconscionable, is it so perverse that it will go to the root of Constitution amendment?’ Reddy said in conclusion.