Abstract : The constitution 103rd Amendment act, 2019 has amended article 15 and Article 16 of the constitution by adding clause (6) in each article, which empowers the state to provide a maximum of 10% reservation for Economically Weaker Sections of citizens other than Schedule Caste, Schedule Tribes and Other Backward Classes -Non Creamy Layer in Educational Institutions including Higher Educational Institutions. This paper tries to analyse the concept of equality vis a vis the concept of protective discrimination with a view to understand the justifiability of the Constitutional (103rd Amendment) Act, 2019, and how far it is in conformity with the intent behind protective discrimination provided by the forefathers of the constitution and jurisprudence of reservation at the time of inception of Constitution. This paper examines view of Supreme Court regarding reservation to understand the validity of the 103rd amendment. The paper concludes that intent behind creation of policy of protective discrimination was to uplift the marginalised sections of society because of the stigma and discrimination attached to their castes. Hence to extend the policy to the classes, who were never subjected to such stigma and historical discrimination, is to betray the intent of the constituent assembly. The paper also concludes that upon examination the reservation for economically weaker sections fails to qualify the test of intelligible differentia enshrined under article 14.
Keywords : Equality, Reservation, Discrimination, Class legislation.
