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Women’s Bill: House panel’s suggestion on sub-quota

NEW DELHI: To break the deadlock over sub-quota for women of Other Backward Classes, the Parliamentary committee on women’s reservation has suggested that the issue be left to the State Legislatures which could pass resolutions favouring this sub-quota for MPs and MLAs in their States.

Committee chairman E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan has circulated the proposal to all the political parties. He told The Hindu that he expected a clear response from them by October 7, when the next meeting of the committee was scheduled. The committee is expected to discuss the response of the parties.

“We would like to finalise our report later by the end of October. We are trying hard to arrive at a political consensus so that the government can then present the Bill in the session starting October 17,” Mr. Natchiappan said.

All parties, except four with a total current membership of 75 MPs in the Lok Sabha, favour adopting the Bill in its current form that gives them one-third representation in Parliament and Assemblies. The four — the Samajwadi Party (37), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (24), the Janata Dal-United (8) and the Pattali Makkal Katchi (6) — together constitute less than one-seventh of the total current strength of the House which stands at 538. These parties have been saying that they favour a sub-quota for OBC women within the overall 33 per cent reservation.

To try and build a consensus the committee has proposed that an amendment to the current Bill be made that will allow Legislatures to adopt resolutions in their Assemblies favouring an OBC sub-quota for MPs and MLAs from their State. “The amendment can say that nothing prevents Parliament from making a law for OBC seats from a particular State on the basis of a resolution passed by the relevant State legislature,” Mr. Natchiappan said.

The committee chairman said Article 243 (D) and (T) allowed OBC quotas for local bodies such as nagar palikas and panchayats. Seventeen States had already taken advantage of this to create OBC reservations in local bodies. It would be for the State Legislature to consider whether OBCs were adequately represented even without a quota or need a special quota. This exercise was conducted by the States when they considered whether OBC quotas should be created for local bodies.

This could be extended to State Legislatures and Parliament.

Article 243 (D) provides for reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes according to their population and a minimum of one-third seats for women. Article 243 (D) clause 6 adds: “Nothing in this Part shall prevent the Legislature of a State from making any provision for reservation of seats in any panchayat or officers or chairpersons in the panchayats at any level in favour of backward class of citizens.” A similar freedom has been given to Legislatures under Article 243 (T) clause 6.

What has been given in the Constitution in respect of local bodies can be extended to State legislatures and MPs from that State is the assumption of the Natchiappan committee’s suggestion.

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