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3-day MPs convention to discuss reservations threadbare

A three-day convention of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Members of Parliament will be held before the winter session to discuss all pending issues on reservations and the conclusions reached would be placed before Parliament for discussion, Law, Justice and Company Affairs Minister Ram Jethmalani announced today.

The announcement was made by Jethmalani in the Lok Sabha while moving the 84th Constitution Amendment Bill seeking further extension of reservations for SC/ST for a period of ten years with effect from January 26, 2000 in government jobs and elected bodies.

Jethmalani said that the Bill has the support of all sections of society as there is concern over the substantial failure of this provision of the Constitution.

Initiating the debate, Buta Singh (Congress) said that the scope of reservations should be extended to the Rajya Sabha and the legislative council as well as specialised institutions, the judiciary and the armed forces.

Raising the issue of five controversial orders issued by the government in the past two years that has resulted in the dilution of the reservation policy, Buta Singh demanded that these orders should be amended at the earliest.

He said that all court orders issued in the recent past should be discussed on the floor of the House. Citing specific cases, he said that funds reserved for the upliftment of SC/ST were being diverted in 1997 and 1998.

Supporting the Bill, Dr C Suguna Kumari (Telegu Desam Party) said that the government should take immediate steps to ensure that the benefit of reservations goes to those who deserve it.

Sandhya Bauri (Communist Party of India-Marxist) urged the government to take steps to provide proper education for SC/ST children. She said that the government should take sufficient steps to ensure that the benefit of reservations is passed on to this class.

M A Kharbela Swain (Bharatiya Janata Party) supported the Bill but when he asked why a time frame should not be fixed for reservations to SC and ST, as this policy could not be allowed to continue indefinitely, there was a furore.

A number of members, belonging to the SC and ST category, disputed his suggestion branding it as an indirect opposition to the constitutional amendment. Swain who was frequently interrupted by the irate members sought to highlight the fact that reservation benefits had not percolated down to the deserving members of the depressed castes.

Vested interests had developed among the deprived communities who cornered the concessions. They constitute a ''creamy layer'' among them who thrive at the cost of poorest of the poor, Swain said adding that the failure to check this trend would lead to a non-ending scramble of various castes for getting themselves listed as SC/ST or OBC as done recently by the Jats of Delhi and Rajasthan.

While supporting the Bill, Mayawati (Bahujan Samaj Party) said the effort to fix a time-frame for the reservation policy manifested the mind-set of privileged castes who rarely enquired seriously into why the reservation provision for SC/ST was made by the founding fathers of the Constitution.

Mayawati said political parties were not sincere in the implementation of reservation but are supporting it only because of political reasons. She contended that if the reservation policy had been implemented faithfully since independence then there would have been no need for extending it now.

Ram Prasad (Samajwadi Party) and Nawal Kishore Rai (Janata Dal-United) also supported the Bill but pointed out that funds meant for SC/ST were squandered by officials in league with vested interests.

K Suresh (Congress) sought punitive action against those officials who failed to implement the reservation policy or circumvented its implementation. There should be a special commission to try defaulting officials which should also monitor the implementation of reservations at the official level.

Dr V Saroja (All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) also supported the Bill but pointed to the atrocities being committed on SC/ST.

Mohan Rawale (Shiv Sena) said undue dependence on reservations will cripple progress and therefore such reservations should only be on the basis of economic status.

He said it was not right for Parliament to comment on the Supreme Court. However, Buta Singh intervened to clarify that he had only noted that the Supreme Court should not have given a judgement on fundamental rights when it referred to stopping reservations in promotions, and had not cast any aspersions on the apex court. Somnath Chatterjee who was in the chair also ruled that what Buta Singh had said did not amount to aspersion.

T Rama Naidu (TDP) said a review committee should be set up to plug loopholes in implementing the reservation policy, and there should also be reservation for women.

Raghuvansh Prasad Singh (Samajwadi Janata Party) welcomed the proposal by the law minister for a conference to discuss the progress of reservations. It was necessary to assess the progress in reservation during the last fifty years and give the justification for fixing the period of ten years.

Geeta Mukherjee (CPI) stressed the need for land reform as she felt that the atrocities on the backward classes and women were mostly perpetrated by landlords.

Punnulal Mohale (BJP) said the population explosion had resulted in the reservation policy getting extended time and again and therefore urgent steps were needed to control the growth in population.

P K Handique (Congress) said there was need for an assessment to see why progress had been so slow. Referring to creation of smaller states in the Northeast, he said mere enhancement of political status did not mean economic equality or emancipation.

Ramdas Athawale (Republican Party of India) also demanded a progress report and noted that the Supreme Court should not make pronouncements on fundamental rights.

Rattanlal Kataria (BJP) created a flutter when he made a reference to the Congress party with the use of a descriptive word, but this was expunged by P M Sayeed who was in the chair following protests from some members. Kataria insisted that the BJP had always been pro-backward classes.

UNI

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