HC strikes down Madhya Pradesh’s 27% OBC quota law, calls it ‘unconstitutional’
The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Friday struck down the state’s 2019 law that increased the reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category from 14% to 27%, ruling that the government could not show any “extraordinary conditions or exigent circumstances” to exceed the 50% ceiling for reservation.
A division bench of Justices Anand Pathak and Vinay Saraf in Jabalpur, in a 159-page order, called the Madhya Pradesh Public Service (Reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes) Amendment Bill, 2019, introduced during the 15-month Congress rule of former chief minister Kamunal Nath as the “Nath government”. It also directed the state recruitment authorities to fill up 13% of the posts suspended in all government posts from September 2022, without reservation, within three months based on pre-existing selection lists.
The High Court’s judgment came after years of hearing a number of petitions filed by unreserved category students challenging the August 2019 amendment to the law, which followed an order by Mr Nath’s government in March that year.
While the matter remained before the court, various recruitment units in the state faced judicial stays, prompting the state government in September 2022, then ruled by the BJP, to come up with the 87:13 formula, which was approved by the Supreme Court. This allowed recruitment for 87% of the vacancies, while the remaining 13% were put on hold until the matter was resolved. At present, two separate lists from the lower part of the successful merit list are prepared for the 13% posts – one of unreserved and one of OBC candidates – which will be held to be released once the case is resolved.
However, the court said appointments made under 27% reservation between March 2019 and September 2022 will remain safe.
“Part of the mainstream”
Ending the law as a case of “scope of reservations”, the High Court said: “Based on the data available in the field of higher education and public services as demonstrated in the preceding paragraphs and tables, it appears that the OBCs are adequately represented under Article 16(4) of the Constitution of India. They are largely part of the mainstream.”
The Supreme Court also took cognizance of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Indra Sawhney and Jaishri Laxmanrao Patil cases and said there were “no extraordinary conditions or exigent circumstances” in the government’s case.
“The issue in this case is not the grant of reservation but the extent of reservation. The OBCs are certainly entitled to reservation to the extent of 14%. However, no case is made for increasing the reservation from 14% to 27%. Therefore, the ceiling of 50% as laid down by the Supreme Court of India has to be respected. So OBCs are entitled to reservation to the extent of 2, not the higher number of reads and 14% in public services.
The apex court also highlighted various government data sets and said that OBCs “in addition to their reservation quota (14%) secure around 50% seats in open competition” in the state.
“For context, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, a total of 60% seats are reserved for SC, ST, OBC and Economically Weaker Section categories, while 40% remain in the open category. Data suggests that OBCs secure 14% seats through their reservation quota and the remaining 20% through open competition,” it said.
The court also noted that Madhya Pradesh is politically dominated by OBCs. “These figures, coupled with the fact that the state is politically dominated by OBCs, with four chief ministers in regular succession, one after the other, and more than 25% of ministers and MLAs are from the OBC category, there is no argument to speak of under-representation in political, educational, economic or social fields. All the parameters demonstrate the adequacy of overall representation and even welcome steps that should be celebrated. Still, a lot has been done, but differently,” he said.
Senior advocate Aman Lekhi, appearing for the petitioner, also argued that the 2019 bill “was not a legitimate object but a clear case of electoral opportunism and vote bank politics” as it was introduced just a day before the introduction of the model code of conduct for the 2019 parliamentary elections.
OBCs constitute more than 50% of the state’s population. Both the BJP and the Congress reacted to the court order by saying they remained firm on securing 27% reservation for the community, blaming each other for the collapse of the government’s case.
Published – 10 Oct 2026 01:46 IST