Reservation cannot be proportionate to population of castes, says Karnataka High Court

A view of the High Court of Karnataka.

The High Court of Karnataka on Monday said that the Constitution mandates “adequate representation”, not “proportionate representation”, while observing that “the fundamental premise that reservation for backward classes must be in proportion to their population is erroneous.”

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice K.S. Hemalekha made these observations in its judgment striking down the law that had increased reservation from 15% to 17% for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and from 3% to 7% for Scheduled Tribes (STs), resulting in a breach of the 50% ceiling on total reservations for SCs, STs and Other Backward Classes.

State’s argument

The State government had argued that the increase in reservation for SCs and STs was justified as their population had grown to 24.1% while reservation remained static at 18%.

Citing the 2020 report of the H.N. Nagamohan Das Commission, headed by retired High Court judge H.N. Nagamohan Das, the government claimed that when reservation for SCs was fixed at 15% and for STs at 3%, their share in Karnataka’s population was about 13% and 0.8%, respectively. It argued that by 2011, the SC population had increased to 17.15% and the ST population to 6.95%, taking their combined share to 24.10%, while reservation for these communities remained unchanged at 18%.