: Opinion: Equality over social justice #IndiaNEWS #News By Nayakara Veeresha On 2 August 2022, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court delivered its verdict in the case of Satyajit Kumar & Ors vs

Opinion: Equality over social justice #IndiaNEWS #News
By Nayakara Veeresha
On 2 August 2022, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court delivered its verdict in the case of Satyajit Kumar & Ors vs the State of Jharkhand & Ors (2022). The bench opined that 100% reservation to the local Adivasis is found to be violative of Articles 13(2), 15, 16(3) and 35(a-i) in addition to Articles 14 and 16(4) of the Constitution.
In the same case earlier, the Jharkhand High Court in September 2020 heavily relied upon the Apex Court’s judgement in the case of Chebrolu Leela Prasad Rao vs the State of Andhra Pradesh (2020) to invalidate the 100% reservation to the local Adivasis. The main issue dealt with in both these cases is the constitutional validity of the 100% reservations provided to the Scheduled Tribe candidates (STs) for the post of teachers in the schools of scheduled areas under the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution.
This verdict opens up the floodgate for the States in Fifth Schedule to relook at the socio-economic initiatives that were aimed at the uplift of the Adivasis from marginalisation in all walks of life.
In the Chebrolu Leela Prasad Rao vs the State of Andhra Pradesh (2020), the Apex Court observed that “providing for 100 per cent reservation is not permissible and it is violative of Articles 14 and 16(4) of the Constitution of India???.
Procedural Vs Substantive Equality
The Apex Court in both these verdicts has stopped at the formal or procedural equality only to deny the benefits of substantive equality and distributive justice. The court’s conclusion that providing 100% reservation to the local Adivasis in certain employment opportunities by the Governor’s order violates Articles 14 and 16 is illogical, as the reasoning for this assertion is made on the grounds of looking only through the prism of formal rather than substantive equality. The founders of the Constitution envisaged the attainment of substantive equality through formal equality as only an enabling but not an exclusive condition.
The achievement of substantive equality requires State action as part of the Directive Principles of State Policy in Part IV of the Constitution. In this way, the fundamental rights in Part III remain only on paper in the absence of the State’s conscious efforts to implement the same. Any discussion with regard to the fundamental rights of the citizens, in general, and the rights of marginalised sections of society, in particular, must involve the role of the State in the context of Article 46.
The top court has erred in both verdicts by looking at Part III of the Constitution as standalone, thereby reducing the role of the State and subsequently diluting the significance of the Fifth Schedule and the vision of social justice accorded to it.

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