Reservation | The way forward on reservation
India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was trending towards socialism. Liberal fundamental rights have to be relaxed to implement socialism. While fundamental rights give priority to the freedom of the people, the socialist policy directors demand more rights for the state. To move towards socialism, according to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, it was necessary to reform the land by abolishing the Zamindar system. The zamindar system was abolished by advancing the work of land reforms.
The second provision was made in this that everyone will have limited land and those who have more land will be acquired by the state and distributed to the landless. The Land Reform Act was reducing the fundamental rights related to property of the landlords due to which the laws related to land reform were challenged.
A large number of appeals were made against these reforms in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. Hearing a similar appeal, the Bihar High Court declared such a law illegal. With Bihar, other states could also be prevented from implementing these laws, so the first constitutional amendment was done by the government.
The Bill became an Act with the President's approval on 18 June 1951. The 9th Schedule was added to the Constitution by this amendment. By creating the 9th schedule, 13 laws were included for land reforms and related provisions. By joining this, these laws got freedom from judicial review. The number of laws has now increased from 13 to 284 in the 9th schedule. This schedule was created so that if a law is included in it, it will be freed from judicial review. That is, they will get protection under Article 31B. With this, if any law is rejected by the court! If it is added to it later in Parliament, it will come into effect again. However, after the Kesavanand Bharati case, 1973, this rule has changed a bit. Laws included in the 9th Schedule can also be retrospective, i.e. valid from their initial period.
Reservation issue has been included in India's most talked about issues. That is why many times there has been a demand for reservation that it should also be put in the 9th schedule. In July 2018, Ramdas Athawale also raised it in a meeting chaired by the Prime Minister. Recently, while hearing a petition related to reservation, the Supreme Court said that reservation is not a fundamental right. Therefore, an appeal for this cannot be made under Article 32.
Although the provisions related to reservation come under Articles 15 and 16, but now its form has changed under the interpretation of Supreme Court. After this decision of the Supreme Court, it is no longer binding on the states to implement it. With this, writs such as habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, inducement and rights will not be issued. After this decision, now the demand for inclusion of reservation in the 9th schedule has increased again.
Although the experts of the constitution say that it will not be valid. After the decision in the Keshavanand Bharti case, the situation now is that the laws included in the 9th Schedule can also be judicially reviewed. However this can happen only if the related law violates someone's basic right or the basic structure of the constitution is affected. Even in the opposition of reservation, there is a demand from time to time that it should be abolished or its structure changed. The need of the hour is that any step should be taken only after extensive consultation in the Constitution on this issue.
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