Reservation And The Right To Education In India: A Critical Analysis Of Constitutional Mandates, Judicial Interpretation, And The Quest For Educational Equity

Abstract

Reservation in the Indian educational system has been regarded as a crucial tool under the umbrella of affirmative action measures mostly in making equality of opportunity real and ensuring educational inclusion of marginalized sections of society. This paper analyzes how reservation is interlinked with the Right to Education by focusing on the question of whether such a policy helps the achievement of educational equity on one side or at the same time, under certain situations, may even prevent the comprehensive constitutional goal of education on the other. Apart from constitutional provisions, the study throws light on judicial perspectives on reservation, mainly from Articles 15(4), 15(5), 15(6) as they stand now. Several landmark judgments have been discussed to clarify the role of equality and reservation, and the interdependency of both for enabling the realization of the educational rights. The paper explores the aspects of social justice, equal educational opportunities and the dimensions of empowerment plus representation that reservation policy can offer through its implementation. It still cannot be ignored, the authors say, to take into account the issues of institutional autonomy, quality education, the occurrence of political expansion, unequal distribution of benefits, the concept of cream layer as a justification for removal from such benefits due to economic advancement and the principle of merit. The paper makes the claim that reservations, though effective instruments of affirmative action, were never the same as Right to Education. The latter is just one of a series of constitutional instruments that could bring the creation of such access to education in substance. It ends by stating that the government should take more measures to supplement the education provided through reservation by offering quality education, academic help, structural reforms, policy reviews etc. to realize educational equity at its true level. [1] [1] Joshua E. Weishart, Reconstituting the Right to Education, 67 Ala. L. Rev. 915, 965–68 (2016).