HC strikes down Madhya Pradesh’s 27% OBC quota law, calls it ‘unconstitutional’
The Madhya Pradesh High Court has struck down a 2019 state law that increased OBC reservation from 14% to 27%, citing a failure to justify breaching the 50% reservation ceiling. The court ordered that pending recruitment vacancies be filled by unreserved candidates, though existing appointments made under the 27% quota remain protected.
Why it matters
This ruling impacts state-level employment policies and reinforces judicial oversight on reservation limits, potentially influencing similar legal challenges across India.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Friday struck down a 2019 State law that had increased reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category from 14% to 27%, holding that the government could not demonstrate any “extraordinary conditions or emergent situations” to breach the 50% ceiling on reservation.
A Division Bench of Justices Anand Pathak and Vinay Saraf in Jabalpur, in a 159-page order, termed the Madhya Pradesh Public Service (Reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes) Amendment Act, 2019, brought during the 15-month Congress government of former Chief Minister Kamal Nath, as “unconstitutional”. It also directed the State recruitment authorities to fill the 13% posts, which have been on hold since September 2022 in all government jobs, with unreserved candidates within three months based on the already existing selection lists.
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