Excluding poor from reserved classes discriminatory: Minority judgment

New Delhi: In their minority verdict, Chief Justice U U Lalit and Justice Ravindra Bhat held that the 103rd constitutional amendment was discriminatory in not allowing the poor from the reserved classes to get the benefits of reservation while giving benefits to only general classes and cited official data which showed that more than 80% of the Below Poverty Line (BPL) families belonged to SCs/STs/OBCs.

- AmitAanand.Choudhary timesgroup.com

“The exclusionary clause (in the impugned amendment) that keeps out from the benefits of economic reservation, backward classes and SC/STs, therefore, strikes a death knell to the equality and fraternal principle which permeates the equality code and non-discrimination principle,” said Justice Bhat, who penned the judgment for himself and the CJI.