CHENNAI, JUNE 26
The Madras High Court on Thursday issued notice to the Centre and Tamil Nadu government on a PIL seeking to declare as unconstitutional a recent state revenue department order not to issue income or assets certificates to the economically weaker sections (EWS) required to avail reservation benefits for the category.
When the public interest litigation petition by the Akhila Bharatha Brahmin Association came up for hearing, a bench of Justice R. Subbiah and Justice Krishnan Ramasamy issued the notice returnable by June 30.
Petitioner association represented by its president T K Kulathumani submitted that the Commissioner of Revenue Administration had on June 4 issued an order directing the district collectors to instruct their subordinates not to issue any income certificates or assets certificates to economically weaker sections either through online or manually.
It said the government by way of 103rd Constitutional amendment provided 10 per cent reservation for people from economically weaker sections in civil posts and services in the Central government and admission in educational institutions.
Following this, the Tamil Nadu government issued a circular to all the district authorities to issue income and assets certifications to the EWS on May 4, 2019.
But after one year, the state government withdrew the circular in contravention of the the Constitutional amendment. Because of this no member of the petitioner association would be able to apply for any posts under the EWS quota in the Central government, the PIL submitted.
Alleging that the impugned circular directing not to issue any income certificate to the economically weaker sections was unconstitutional, the petitioner sought to quash it.
