Lok Janshakti Party leader Ram Vilas Paswan on Thursday said the creamy layer should not be excluded from reservation benefits while Congress leader Digvijay Singh said Parliament was supreme in policy issues.
"Our party has always believed that the creamy layer should not be kept out (of the reservation policy)," Paswan said while reacting to the Supreme Court ruling limiting reservations to 50 per cent and exclusion of the creamy layer from the quota policy.
Paswan said that employees from SC/ST categories were still treated badly and it is in these circumstances that the need for reservation is imperative.
All India Congress Committee general secretary Digvijay Singh said policy issues should be left to Parliament and Assemblies as it represents the people, who are supreme in a democracy.
"I always say that neither judiciary nor the executive should encroach upon each other's jurisdictions laid down in the Constitution," he said.
Bharatiya Janata Party vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi maintained that the Constitution does not allow reservations to continue for an indefinite period, but admitted that no political party has the courage to say that it should not stay for an indefinite period.
"There is a provision in the Constitution that it (reservations) should not go on for an indefinite period... a time limit was fixed. But honestly speaking, no political party, and we too, do not have the courage (to speak) that it should not stay for an indefinite period as set out by Babasaheb Ambedekar," Naqvi said.
