CTET 2019: The Supreme Court of India has sought a response from the Central government and Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on a plea challenging CTET 2019 notification. The plea filed by CTET 2019 aspirants belonging to the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) of the general category had earlier challenged the notification for Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) 2019 in which the provision of recently passed 10% EWS reservation for general candidates was not mentioned.

On 13th May 2019, a vacation bench comprising Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Sanjiv Khanna had opined that reservation cannot be given in qualifying exams like CTET. The proposed 10% EWS reservation is applicable for admissions to institutions of higher studies, government job recruitments, etc.

“For qualifying examinations there cannot be any reservation. This is wholly misconceived. This (CTET) is merely a qualifying examination. The issue of reservation will come up only at the time of admission,” the judges had stated.

The judges further clarified that no such reservation benefit was mentioned for SC, ST, OBC, or other categories either. Hearing the matter today, the bench has asked the Centre and CBSE to respond to the plea. The matter is up for hearing again on 1st July 2019, and the central government and CBSE have been asked to submit their replies before the next hearing.

What entails to 10% EWS Reservation?

The Narendra Modi led central government had passed 103 rd amendment to the Constitution on 9th January 2019 in the Rajya Sabha, earlier this year, by introducing articles 15 (6) and 16 (6) to provide 10% reservation to Economically Weaker Section (EWS) of the society .

Article 15(6) states, “(6) Nothing in this article or sub-clause (g) of clause (1) of article 19 or clause (2) of article 29 shall prevent the State from making,— (a) any special provision for the advancement of any economically weaker sections of citizens other than the classes mentioned in clauses (4) and (5).”

The amendment further points out, “(b) any special provision for the advancement of any economically weaker sections of citizens other than the classes mentioned in clauses (4) and (5) in so far as such special provisions relate to their admission to educational institutions including private educational institutions, whether aided or unaided by the State, other than the minority educational institutions referred to in clause (1) of article 30, which in the case of reservation would be in addition to the existing reservations and subject to a maximum of ten per cent. of the total seats in each category.”

While, article 16(6) reads, "(6) Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any provision for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of any economically weaker sections of citizens other than the classes mentioned in clause (4), in addition to the existing reservation and subject to a maximum of ten per cent. of the posts in each category".

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