On March 17, the court cancelled the Centre's decision to include Jats in the Other Backward Classes category to give them quota benefits.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today that his government would try to find a solution within the legal framework on reservations for the Jat community.
PM Modi said this to a delegation of 70 Jat leaders from various states that asked him to step in days after the Supreme Court scrapped Jat quota. "We have suggested that a review petition in the Supreme Court is an option which the National Democratic Alliance government can consider," said Sanjeev Balyan, Ministers of State for Agriculture, who was part of the delegation.
On March 17, the court cancelled the Centre's decision to include Jats in the Other Backward Classes category to give them quota benefits. The court asked the government why it ignored the findings of a panel that advised against the quotas on the grounds that the community could not be classified as "backward." The Jat leaders also told the Prime Minister today that the National Commission for Backward Classes must conduct a fresh survey on the economic and social backwardness of the community in a time-bound manner.
The quota was announced by the earlier United Progressive Alliance government. The Narendra Modi government, which swept to power in elections last year in April-May, backed it in court. The previous government's decision was not meant to gain political mileage but was made in public interest, the Centre told the Supreme Court. The Centre's response came as part of an ongoing hearing of a petition by the OBC Reservation Raksha Samiti, which had asked the Supreme Court to quash the Jat quota.