The ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu on Monday urged the Centre to amend the Constitution empowering the States to fix the quantum of reservation as per their needs.
The general council of the DMK, the highest policy-making body, chaired by party president and Chief Minister M Karunanidhi adopted a resolution to this effect.
It said the state government has ordered 69 per cent reservation for SC, ST and Backward Classes. But the Supreme Court had said the quota should not exceed 50 per cent.
To protect the 69 per cent reservation, the state government had passed a separate legislation and obtained President' assent for the same. However, the apex court had stayed the order.
"'This forced the state to approach the apex court every year to ensure that 69 per cent reservation was implemented every year to protect the interests of the student community," the resolution said.
The resolution said in 1994 itself, Karunanidhi, in a letter to Chief Ministers of all States and political leaders, had stresed that the state governments should be empowered to fix the quantum of reservation. This has been the stand of the DMK right from its inception, it added.
In another resolution, the DMK opposed economic criteria for reservation and demanded that the creamy layer concept be removed from its purview.
It said the Supreme court in its recent order upholding 27 per cent quota for OBCs in Centrally-run higher educational institutions, had said creamy layer could be excluded from reservation. The DMK was opposed to this.
The concept of reservation was not a tool to remove poverty, but to render social justice to backward classes, who had been denied education for several hundred years. This is the right ensured to them in the Constitution, it said.