BHUBANESWAR: The high court verdict striking down the Act promising 27% reservation for socially and educationally backward classes has huge political ramifications for the Naveen Patnaik government . Sources indicated the government may move the Supreme Court against the verdict, which if it does, will linger the protracted legal battle on the contentious issue that has been going on for the past more than three decades.Just ahead of the assembly elections in 1995, the Biju Patnaik (Naveen's father) government passed a resolution enhancing job quota for SEBCs from 11.25% to 27% eyeing the backward class votes. It's altogether a different matter that he summarily lost the elections.The enhanced quota was challenged by one Hara Priya Dash, a job seeker, in the Odisha Administrative Tribunal (OAT). The tribunal quashed the resolution saying the overall quota can't exceed 50%. In Odisha, the reservation had gone up to 65.75% (SC 16.25%, ST 22.5% and SEBC 27%). The state government's appeal petitions against the OAT order were rejected first by the high court and later by the Supreme Court.Ahead of the 2009 elections, the Naveen Patnaik government passed the Odisha Reservation of Posts and Services for (SEBC) Bill 2008, with provision of 27% quota again. It then said an Act will stand scrutiny of law unlike a resolution earlier. Some job seekers challenged the Act in the OAT which quashed the Act in 2013. The state again moved the HC, which has upheld the OAT verdict.If the government doesn't appeal against the HC verdict, opposition may play the OBC card questioning the government's sincerity. Following the OAT verdict in 2013, as an interim measure Odisha has been giving 11.25% reservation to SEBCs after it issued a resolution in June 2014. Prahlad Sinha, who was counsel for one of the petitioners in the OAT, said the tribunal had suggested government to produce quantifiable data of SEBCs in the state services, which it could not.The state government had challenged the verdict on the plea that the Centre also has 27% reservation for the backward castes. However, the overall reservation by the Centre is 49.5% as the combined reservation for SCs/STs is 22.5%. States, which offer reservations beyond 50%, have to their state laws placed in the ninth schedule of the Indian Constitution, for which Parliament has to pass a law.

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