Karnataka Congress Leaders Challenge High Court Ruling on SC/ST Reservation Enhancement

Former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara have responded to the Karnataka High Court's ruling striking down legislation that enhanced reservation quotas for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Both Congress leaders questioned the previous BJP government's decision to implement the enhanced quotas — raising SC reservation from 15% to 17% and ST reservation from 3% to 7% — ahead of the 2023 Assembly elections while allegedly knowing the total would breach the constitutional 50 per cent ceiling. They have called on the Union Government to review the ceiling, act on Karnataka's Ninth Schedule proposal, and indicated the state government will explore all legal remedies including a potential Supreme Court appeal.

A Monday press release attributed to Siddaramaiah put forward the position that the quota revisions — raising the Scheduled Caste allocation from 15 per cent to 17 per cent and the Scheduled Tribe allocation from 3 per cent to 7 per cent — were carried out in the run-up to the 2023 Assembly elections despite officials at the time reportedly having knowledge that the combined figures would exceed the 50 per cent constitutional limit, with the statement also noting that his party holds the courts in high regard. The former Chief Minister credited the reservation expansion to sustained advocacy by communities that had long sought greater inclusion, citing the Justice Nagamohan Das Committee — convened under the 2018 Congress-JD(S) coalition government — as having laid the foundational work that made the move possible. Siddaramaiah urged the state government to exhaust every legal option available in protecting students and job aspirants, adding that the drive toward social justice had to extend well beyond pre-election commitments — the measure of progress, he said, lay not in pledges of future representation but in whether that representation was actually achieved. Karnataka's Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara warned that the High Court ruling stood to affect employment and educational opportunities across the state. Parameshwara put forward questions about the BJP-led administration's move to enact the reservation legislation in October 2022, pointing out that officials at the time had known it would push allocations beyond the 50 per cent ceiling without the protection of Ninth Schedule inclusion, while separately arguing that the concerns of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities warranted consideration on their own terms rather than being tied to the timing of elections.

Karnataka Congress Leaders Challenge High Court Ruling on SC/ST Reservation Enhancement

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Karnataka Congress Leaders Challenge High Court Ruling on SC/ST Reservation Enhancement

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